Project 34
by sap1066
Summary: Celebrations are in full swing on Ajan Kloss after the Resistance's glorious defeat of the First Order, but all is not as it should be. Rey Skywalker is alive, but she is not the girl she was - she has come back from the dead, but she has come back wrong. Ben Solo is also alive, but he has problems of his own. Death is only the beginning...
1. Chapter 1

It is six hours and thirty four minutes before anyone actually asks.

Assumptions are running unchecked through the impromptu celebrations on Ajan Kloss, along with copious amounts of alcohol and more than a small helping of spice. All the First Order Star Destroyers blew up, all at once, says one rumour. Palpatine escaped, insists another. There are so many rumours no one really knows the truth, and no one really cares to find out. For now, all the Resistance and their galaxy of allies care about is finding whatever makes them happiest quickest, and doing as much of it as possible.

Rey does not feel like celebrating. After the initial relief of finding out that her friends have survived, after the hugging has become awkward and the sharing of stories is over she finds herself looking around for more. Searching for something that is missing. She knows exactly what it is but no one else appears to have noticed it is gone. No one so much as asks until Finn taps her on the shoulder as she's bent over a console, squinting at the readout.

A bottle is curled in the crook of his arm, Jannah is hanging from the other. She looks like she's having the time of her life but Finn tries to mould his features into an expression of sobriety. 'Ren's dead, isn't he? You killed him, right? That was why you flew away in his shuttle?'

'He's dead.' Rey confirms it with a nod although she knows that this is not, strictly speaking, true.

The Jedi texts have much to say about becoming one with the Force, about how it represents a state of being which is almost immortality for Force users. If they are one with the Force, no one is ever really gone, and she knows from past experience that the dead have tremendous power.

As Finn frowns at her, standing a little straighter and trying to focus on something he reads in her face, Rey realises that this is not what she wants for Ben. She does not want him wandering around in a shiny blue corona, dispensing the wisdom of the ancients and growing a beard. She does not want him haunting her, stuck in a limbo in which he can see all, but touch nothing. She does not want to grow old as he watches, and she does not want him endlessly waiting for her to join him in his non-existent grave. She has no idea what he was taught, but she hopes he missed the lessons about manifesting as a Force ghost. If he is dead, she wants him to have peace.

'He's not coming back,' she says convincingly and Finn wobbles away, although not without a curious glance over his shoulder. She already knows she will have to speak to him again later. He will want to tell her he can sense her in the Force. She can sense him now too, and she will have to deal with the consequences of that.

Rey weaves amongst the crowds, congratulated by a pilot, hugged by a mechanic, apologised to by a droid. Someone somewhere has turned on some music and she heads in the opposite direction, feeling like the only adult at a children's party. She hadn't minded the odd firewater before, but something inside her has changed, and she doesn't think she'll ever drink again.

She seeks out the quiet of the secondary command post, but there is no peace to be found here either, since what is left of the Resistance old guard and the other grown-ups are clustered around a holographic map of the galaxy, taking stock. Some of them nod at her entrance. Others have no idea who she is.

'Frantis Griss?' asks Aftab Ackbar, with whom Rey scrapes an acquaintance.

'Went down on the _Steadfast_ with Allegiant General Pryde.'

'Amret Engell?'

A blonde female Rey does not know spits on the floor. 'That bitch. I hope she's dead. She took my niece at two years old.'

'Escaped. Last seen heading for the Jinata system.' The information comes from an older man, busy tapping on a datapad.

'Bellava Parnadee?'

The datapad yields further results. 'In custody. Singing like a convoree.'

'Domaric Quinn?'

'Never made it to Exegol, according to Parnadee. Ren murdered him.'

'Armitage Hux?'

'Never made it anywhere. Pryde killed him for leaking information and letting us escape with the Falcon. Does anyone feel guilty?'

There is a shaking of heads from the four individuals clustered around the central display. Rey cannot help but feel disappointed in her own reaction. She has no compassion for the dead man. She knows his face from HoloNet but they had no personal connection. Still, she should feel regret or sorrow that he died as a result of helping the Resistance, or gratitude for the assistance he had given, but whatever part of her should be crying for him is dry eyed and stone faced.

Poe approaches from an adjoining chamber, talking urgently into his comm. 'I understand the situation perfectly. I'm asking you to deal with it.' He waits for a second, but Rey can't hear the reply. 'You know exactly how I want you to deal with it. I don't need to spell it out. Call me when it's done.' He gives her a sideways glance as he takes his place at the map. 'Situation report?'

Rey is still not used to his assumption of command, but Ackbar salutes casually. 'The First Order hierarchy are killed or captured. One escaped but we're tracking her. We haven't traced the next rank down yet.'

Poe slides Rey another sideways look and she is instantly on the defensive, sensing his question before it is asked.

'What about the next rank up? Where is Kylo Ren – is he dead?'

Rey has thought about this over the last nearly seven hours. She is not obliged to tell anyone the whole truth. No one else was present, the story is hers and it would be much easier to simply carry on repeating the condensed version for easier consumption. She could say that she fought Kylo Ren on the Death Star and killed him, and she need not mention the fact that she stabbed an unarmed man incapacitated by grief. She is not required to divulge the secret that Palpatine's blood runs in her veins, contaminating her permanently. No one needs to know that Ben fought at her side against her grandfather and then sacrificed himself to save her in an act of love that culminated in a kiss still fresh on her lips. The tale could live on in her memory alone.

But across the other side of the map Lando Calrissian is examining her carefully, perhaps aware of her deliberations. Leia spoke of this man a few times, always with a twinkle in her eye, and he would have known Ben in his youth, as had Chewbacca. There are a few people around who still remember who he was before the dark side took him, and if Rey lies to them, she will be blackening his memory. Not that it could get much blacker.

She decides to filet the truth. 'Ben Solo is dead. I saw him die. He fought at my side and he gave his life saving me; he became one with the Force as I watched. You don't need to worry about him anymore.'

Lando's eyebrows raise in surprise. 'Ben Solo?' he queries. 'That's a name that hasn't been used in a while.'

Rey shrugs. 'I never spoke to him about it. I didn't speak to him about anything, I was too busy fighting, but I had the sense that he had changed. He wasn't Kylo Ren any more. His mother's death hit him hard.'

'Where's his body, Rey? Where did you bury him?'

Rey can appreciate that Poe wants to confirm that his opponent is dead, but there is a flicker of anger inside her at the thought that he does not simply take her word for it. 'Are you thinking of sending flowers?' she snaps and then corrects herself, pushing the emotion back into its hole. 'He became one with the Force. He just faded away.'

Poe gives her a very direct look and his next question convinces her that he has hit his head at some point over the last few hours. 'And what was he wearing when he faded away? What clothes did he have on?'

This question is absurd, but she is being scrutinised by the rest of the Resistance, who can surely detect the fact that there are massive gaps in her story. 'He died,' she answers. 'He didn't need clothes.'

'So he was naked?'

Rey just stares at him and his comm link crackles into life. He strides away and she can tell that he is arguing with whoever he is speaking to, his body language tense, his shoulders set in the manner he has begun to use when he gives orders. When he returns to the map he simply mumbles: 'Situation on Exegol.'

'What situation on Exegol?' she asks, dreading the answer. She never wants to go back there. She never wants to think about it or hear its name. She knows that part of her was left behind on that planet but the wound is too raw for her to touch at the moment.

Poe shrugs. 'Sith loyalists. Hundreds of them, all trying to escape. There was cloning technology like we've never seen – I've got a team down there now clearing the vaults, seeing what we can learn and making sure no one runs off with anything they shouldn't.' He pauses. 'They haven't found a body for Palpatine either, but there are bits. Traces. Smears all over the remains of the throne – does that sound about right?'

Rey nods, on slightly safer ground. 'I used his lightning against him. I think he exploded.'

'Then we'll bring him back in a bucket.'

'Don't bring him back at all. Leave him there to rot.'

Poe shakes his head. 'Not until I understand how he managed to escape the Death Star. If there was any chance at all that he was a clone, I want his genetic material here, where I can destroy it myself and prevent any more clones from being made.'

Rey doesn't want her grandfather's genetic material anywhere near the Resistance's databases, which also hold copies of her own DNA. If Luke and Leia felt no need to reveal her parentage to anyone, including her, during the time they had known, then she sees no reason to volunteer the information now. It is far better for everyone if her connection to Palpatine stays hidden. But she doesn't want to draw attention to the subject by arguing so she lets it drop, deciding that she will simply hack into the Resistance datacore later and amend her records.

'So what other problems do we have?' asks Poe, turning his attention elsewhere.

There is more tapping from datapad man, who appears to have taken over the role of intelligence officer, or possibly he has simply resumed the role of intelligence officer given his age and familiarity with the system.

'Twenty five Star Destroyers disappeared into the Hydian Way and we haven't logged exit co-ordinates. We have reports of others entering the Rimma and Perlemian Trade Routes at various points almost immediately after Palpatine's navy fell but no word on exact numbers or destination – they must have been communicating so we're analysing First Order comms signals to see if we can identify a rendezvous point. There is a significant First Order presence at large in the galaxy and we're lacking intelligence on where it is, or what it might do next.'

The blonde woman stands and Rey can tell by the way she moves that she is a warrior. She is dressed all in black, without any identifying rank or insignia, apart from a single, silver pin in the shape of a bird. 'Rebellions are under way on most of the First Order occupied worlds, but although we know that some have succeeded relatively quickly, on others the fight is going to be long and slow. The bastards aren't going to give up power easily, especially where they are more heavily armoured and more numerous than the people they're fighting. And in some places people have been so abused that they've lost the courage to fight. We're going to have to rout the remains of the Order planet by planet, base by base until we've killed them all.'

Ackbar continues the assessment. 'We need to re-establish the New Republic as soon as possible, which will be difficult because so much was lost on Hosnian Prime. The galaxy needs a government.'

'The galaxy needs a leader,' says Calrissian. 'Government can come later. Right now, people are scared. They don't know what's going on. They came when I called because fighting the Emperor was a cause everyone could get behind, but that alliance is going to break down really fast unless we get the message out there about what happens next. Someone needs to be the face of the Resistance, for the next few months at least.'

Rey glances around the room, wondering who will volunteer for this task. Calrissian is looking in her direction, but she wonders whether he will step up for the role, since he is a trusted face and popular enough to mobilise a fleet. However, the other attendees of this tiny council of war have turned their faces towards General Dameron, who wears an expression of patient resignation that Rey thinks might be fake. Before he can say anything his comm link crackles again with the unmistakeable sound of blaster fire.

Poe steps away from the gathering, but not quickly enough that Rey misses the first part of his conversation.

'Fighting back…' yells a voice, full of panic. 'Can't lock him down.'

Poe turns his back on Rey. 'How many have we lost?' There is a pause as he listens. 'Really? I wasn't expecting that. We'll have to try another approach.' The rest of the conversation is lost as he lowers his voice and shortly afterwards, returns to the group.

'Situation getting out of hand?' Rey asks.

Poe gives her a tight nod. 'I'm going to need your help.' He turns and starts issuing orders but Rey stops listening.

She is not ready for this, not yet prepared for life to continue, for the battle to go on without any further pause for reflection. She is acutely aware that she has been operating on autopilot since she left Exegol. She has simply kept moving, pushing any and all reaction to what happened there to the back of her mind, where it has festered and spread its cancerous fingers through her thoughts. Today was the day she died. When she is alone, she knows that the full horror of that experience will come flooding back and she will have to re-live it before she can she can dream without nightmares. Today was the day she loved. When she is alone, she will remember the dawning of that feeling in her heart, the way it swelled and broke in her chest when she realised Ben had come back to fight at her side. Today was the day she lost. When she is alone, she will see his smile again, taste his lips and know that she is alone now forever. Rey isn't looking forward to being alone.

Some time passes before she realises that everyone but Poe has left and he is pressing buttons to transfer a file to the holoprojector hidden in the floor. He turns to face her with a twisted expression on his face. 'I need to show you something. It's top secret so I don't want you to mention it to anyone else at the moment. We need to deal with this ourselves for now.'

A grainy picture emerges from the projector, the view of a small room with no windows, containing only a chair and a table. From the flickering at the edges of the image, and the way it appears to freeze and then jump forward every couple of seconds, Rey has the impression this transmission is live and being broadcast from somewhere moving at high speed. She steps forward to get a better look.

Poe explains, 'He was found wandering in the ruins of Exegol, stark naked and unarmed.'

And there, sitting in the metal chair, dressed in a white paper boiler suit which is visibly too tight across the chest, is Kylo Ren.

'I'm not sure who he is,' says Poe.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey does no more than blink. It is not shock that seals her lips, but relief, massive overwhelming relief burning a path through the stasis that has locked her heart since she left Exegol. She doesn't really pay attention to what Poe says because there he is in front of her, as large as life, Ben Solo made mortal again. He is filthy, dirt smearing his face and neck, his hair sweaty and hardened into strands and he shifts awkwardly where he sits, running a hand over his forehead and flicking the matted locks away from his eyes. The fingers of his free hand spider across the table as if searching for something and he keeps his face bent low, studying the blank surface in front of him so that she cannot read his expression. His shoulders hunch at some external stimulus too quiet for the recording and he hunkers down into the chair.

He is worried. He must be worried given that the last time his eyes were open she was with him and now he is locked in a cell somewhere, alone. It is obvious that he is a prisoner. It doesn't look like he is injured, but putting together the overheard conversations of earlier Rey divines that Ben has been captured, although not without a fight, and is being held at Poe's discretion.

She must go to him. The thought flashes through her mind and it is accompanied by an ache of longing. The strength of the emotion surprises her. They have been living in the same galaxy for twenty years and she has never felt the urge to be with him that she feels now. It is the same urge that drove her lips to seek his when she woke from the darkness and realised who it was that held her. Seeing that he had changed, that he had renounced the dark side smashed aside all the restrictions she had put in place between the attraction she felt towards him and the decision to do anything about it. With the blockage removed, with Kylo Ren dead, she was finally free to follow her heart.

She closes her eyes and opens the bond. She hasn't touched it since she passed him Luke's lightsaber, too afraid to use it after he died for fear of where it might lead but she reaches for it now with joy and anticipation. How will he react when he sees her again? How quickly will she be able to find a place where they can be alone?

Ben's side of the connection responds to her power and she jumps to embrace it. It is like ice within her. The emptiness of it knifes her guts, ripping her open with a bitter slash. There is no answering mind on the other end, no rush of sudden, tumultuous emotion with which she must deal, no one to read her thoughts and respond with a wordless understanding, no one even to argue with her or taunt her; there is no one there. She feels a yawning pit open in her heart, the sorrow she has been trying to avoid all day beckoning her to fall in but she pops her eyes open instead and studies the projection.

Ben is still sitting in his cell staring at the table, giving no sign that he has felt anything at all. His shoulders do not move, his posture does not alter, he gives no indication that he senses her touch. Even though he is practised in self control, even though he must know he is incarcerated and in danger and must be vigilant, she cannot believe that if he felt the bond open he would not react. He was dead, they had lost each other – he wouldn't let the moment of finding her again pass without so much as a blink.

She shuts down the link inside her with a snap but the sadness remains, too strong now to ignore. It is possible that the bond has ceased to function, or that he has experienced some kind of injury that is preventing it from working – it is also possible that he has simply closed himself off from the Force. She doesn't know, but she has to find out.

She turns to Poe. 'What do you mean you don't know who he is?' she asks.

Poe shrugs and fiddles with some commands on his commlink while the projection shifts to show another picture. This time it is a corridor, poorly lit by a solitary blinking panel in the ceiling, with a thick sea of roiling black smoke lapping halfway up the walls. Rey hears muffled voices and the perspective shifts as the Resistance clearance crew she is shadowing approach, the mist swirling angrily around their thighs. There is a call from somewhere off to the left, the words indistinct but the warning clear and then from out of the darkness emerges a man, tall and broad shouldered, the skin of his torso turned a sick blue colour in the intermittent flashing of the light. His hands are open and his face bears a confused look, the brows drawn over the narrow plane of his nose. The smoke leaves nothing to the imagination, and Rey sees parts of him she has never seen, and never thought to imagine before this moment but the man seems unselfconscious and he limps slightly as he moves towards the camera.

There is a shout as he is recognised, a couple of words which are probably his name called out by one of the rebels, a warning bellowed by another. The man does not react, but his mouth moves as if he is searching for something to say. Then the firing starts.

Rey shoots a look of disgust at Poe. 'You ordered them to kill an unarmed man?' She is conscious of the hypocrisy but chooses to ignore it.

'He's Kylo Ren,' Poe shrugs. 'What else did you expect them to do?'

The blaster bolts do not hit their target. The flashes of imminent death streak towards the man in the corridor but they are deflected away, rebounding on the weapons that have fired them and the rebels are forced to dodge as their own shots chase them down. The man's abilities do not surprise Rey, but his reaction does. His eyes widen in surprise and his jaw goes slack. It is quite clear from the recording that he did not expect what has just occurred. But the Resistance are regrouping and without any further discussion they are firing again.

And the man flinches under the assault, in fact, more than that, he cowers before it, bringing his arms up into a defensive pose which speaks more of fear than it does of attack. The blasters are repulsed once again and this time some of the Resistance fighters yell as they go down but the man does not press his advantage, he does not levitate his enemies into walls, choke them with the Force or push them away. Instead, he turns and runs, lumbering back into the smoke which closes over his backside.

Rey finds her gaze drifting to Poe's to see what he makes of this behaviour. She has never seen Ben run from a fight before and even naked and unarmed he has the capacity to dispose of all his opponents and more.

'Strange, right?' Poe mutters and then forwards the recording on.

The remaining members of the rebel crew pursue their target into the mist but the corridor swiftly branches into two, with three doorways opening on either side. The commander, whose bodycam this is, waves a camouflaged arm and the team split up to search the rooms they have found. Rey's perspective follows the leader as she passes over the first threshold and enters what is clearly a massive space, since the sound of her boots begins to echo across the metal floor. This room has been partially destroyed, rubble is strewn across it and a feeble yellow glow from a far corner illuminates a cascade of rock where the roof has collapsed and the contents of the room above have spilled in.

The commander switches on her headtorch and, with hesitant footsteps, turns immediately right and begins to explore. A structure looms out of the shadows, square, a tank with a metal base wreathed in hoses and wires and made of transparisteel plates which house nothing but a dull green sludge. There is a plaque fixed to the side of the tank which shines dimly in the gloom and when the focus shifts, it reveals the number one. The camera moves to the next tank, which is of exactly the same construction, although there seems to be more of the green ooze in this one - the legend on it is the number two. The camerawoman fiddles with the angle of her torch and in the gloom Rey can see a row of similar tanks stretching off towards the back of the room, the numbers dimly visible through the darkness. A fall of stone has obliterated everything from fourteen upwards but Rey catches the blink of a tiny red bulb over the opposite side of the room just before her host sees it too, and follows the trail of light across the treacherous carpet of rock which litters the floor.

Slipping and sliding on the stone the woman approaches a tank, identical to the others she has already passed, all smooth sides and indecipherable equipment but when she gets up close it is easy to see the difference. This tank is empty. The apparatus around its base is still active, and the hum of machinery is a low buzz through the speakers as the power source operating it staggers on. Rey watches as a gloved hand reaches out and a finger is poked into a puddle of a thick, gelatinous goo covering the ground and spilling down the sides of the tank. From this perspective it is apparent that one of the sides of the tank has been retracted and whatever was originally inside is no longer there. The number on the side of the tank reads thirty four.

The camera begins to move back towards the door, but something in the next pod along catches the camerawoman's eye and she bends in closer. Rey feels the pit of her stomach fall away as the lens catches what floats inside. At the back of this receptacle, entirely encased in protective ooze, hangs a human body, large, naked, and in an early state of putrefaction. The skin feathers off into delicate streamers, blurring the outline of the shape and the dark hair forms a nimbus around the head where it has begun to drift away. As the woman turns to pace around the far side Rey gets a sideways view of the profile of the face and bile rises to the back of her throat, confirming her gut reaction. She knows that face. No one else has that profile, no one else has that nose, that combination of features in that exact proportion. The number on this tank reads thirty five.

Rey looks at Poe, but he is busy flicking the screen back to its original view, where the person in the white boiler suit sits on his chair in his cell and stares at the table. Poe watches the picture for a minute before speaking.

'I was contacted for orders not long after that recording was taken. There's more, but I'll spare you the gory details. It's a cloning facility. Looks like Palpatine has been trying to clone Ren for years. In the next room along there were clones of Snoke and in the other rooms…other people.'

Poe gives Rey a look that suggests he is about to vomit and Rey decides right then that she does not want to pursue whatever that look means.

'Palpatine asked me to kill him so he could take my body. Maybe if I'd refused, or died or if I hadn't gone to find him in the first place he'd have got a clone of Ben to do it instead,' she muses. 'The existence of the Final Order suggests he was very good at contingency plans.'

'Then why not clone himself?'

'Maybe they tried. Maybe his DNA was too degraded when they dug him out of the Death Star. He looked half dead.' The figure in the cell catches her attention. 'Do you think he's a clone?'

'I don't know and it doesn't really matter. You said Ren died on Exegol completely naked, and believe me, I want to ask about that but I'm too polite. Then this guy turns up a couple of rooms away, also completely naked, which feels like a bit of a co-incidence. But then, there's a room full of tanks with little Kylo clones that I'm going to have nightmares about for days down there and only one of them is empty. Like I said, it doesn't matter. If that's the real Ren, then he's a war criminal who deserves to die, and if that's a clone, then it isn't a real person anyway and it also deserves to die.'

Rey remembers the conversation she overheard earlier. 'You tried to execute him on Exegol. That was the situation you were talking about. But something went wrong and he fought back.'

'He didn't really fight, didn't really need to – everything just bounces off him, he's untouchable. When the team tracked him down he just stood in a corner with his hands over his eyes and waited for the firing to stop. We lost a couple of men to injury before I called a halt to it and then someone gave him some clothes and asked him nicely to get on a transport.'

'You said you needed my help?'

'Yeah.' For the first time Poe doesn't appear able to meet her gaze. 'He's got powers, so do you. I want to find out who he is and then I want you to help me with him.'

'I thought you said it doesn't matter who he is?'

Poe is looking increasingly shifty. 'I wanted to handle this on Exegol, quietly and discreetly, but he wouldn't let that happen. So now I have a team of soldiers who think they've captured the Supreme Leader of the First Order and a transport crew who are probably sending pictures of him back to their buddies right now. It's not going to be possible to keep this a secret. More people are going to know that we've got Ren in custody, whether he's the real one or not, and they're going to want me to take action.'

'What sort of action do you think people will want you to take?' Something is brewing inside Rey. She can't put a name to it, but it sends little ripples through her composure, like the first drops of a rainstorm.

'A trial,' stammers Poe, flicking her a glance that is cut short as soon as it meets her face. 'I'll have to put him on trial for war crimes and he's bound to be found guilty. People want justice, and as soon as the news spreads that Ren's alive they'll be calling out for his head. I need to know who he is first though. A live broadcast trial with a clone isn't going to be very convincing. If he's not the real Supreme Leader it would be better if we just said he was killed trying to escape prison or something. It would be better if we got rid of him right now without any more fuss.'

'You want my help to execute him, don't you?' she asks silkily, as if this suggestion is something she might consider. The storm comes closer, and her fingers begin to shake as she feels the force of it growing inside her.

Poe chooses to stand his ground. 'He probably isn't even a 'he'. 'He' is probably just an 'it'.' He nods at the screen. 'You said Kylo Ren was dead. The thing in that cell is probably just a clone, a failed science experiment that needs terminating. Or worse, it's a genetically altered clone even more dangerous than the original. I can't think why you'd have a problem getting rid of it.'

Rey takes a step forward and there is a wind blowing so loudly in her ears it is hard to concentrate. Her fingers tremble with its power. 'The man in that cell is either a clone, and is therefore innocent of any crime, or is Ben Solo, who sacrificed his life for mine.' She slides even closer and Poe's face, although so familiar, is something she barely recognises. The tornado inside reaches peak velocity and at last she can put a name to it. It is fury. She has skipped anger and jumped straight to terrible, blinding fury, a rage so vast she can't control it and her fingers whip out as the Force takes a crushing hold of Poe's throat.

'I would rather execute you,' she says.


	3. Chapter 3

'Hey, kid.'

The voice behind her is so familiar for a second that it jolts her out of whatever it is she is doing as she tries to place it. It has the creak of age, but there is a relaxed warmth to it and for an instant she thinks it is Han, reincarnated for this very conversation.

'You okay, Rey?' it asks and she realises that it is Lando Calrissian and not the dead smuggler she barely knew. 'Poe?'

Poe. Rey's attention snaps back into place and she realises that she is standing with one hand extended, her fingers tightening as the Force cuts off Poe's oxygen supply. His face is red, his eyes bulging and his hands are clawing desperately at his neck. She releases the chokehold and staggers backwards, horrified. She has never used a Force choke before, and has no idea where she learnt the technique, or why she thought it justified to deploy it in the first place. She remembers the taste of anger in her mouth, but as Poe collapses against a console in front of her, gasping for breath, all she feels is shame. She has just attempted to murder one of her friends.

She stumbles forward, waving her hands in preparation for a grovelling apology but Poe flinches away from her, ducking around the other side of the equipment, clearly afraid. Rey stops, at a loss to explain what she has just done, to him, or to herself.

'I can come back later if you like,' Lando tries again. 'Only I just heard a rumour that Ben's alive and I wanted to….' He trails off, clearly having spotted the projection. 'Is that him?'

Rey ignores him. 'I'm sorry, Poe. I've…. had a really bad day.' The excuse sounds lame and she can tell by the look in the General's eyes that he thinks so too. Nothing she says will make up for what she has just done, but Poe makes an effort to move on, stepping carefully away from her to join Lando on the far side of the picture.

He clears his throat, loosens his collar. 'Might be,' he croaks. 'Or it might be a clone made by Palpatine. I really don't know.'

Rey stares at her hand, and thinks about her day. Today was the day that she died, and of all of the cataclysmic occurrences that have happened since she first opened her eyes so many hours ago, this is the one of which she is least sure. What happened to her while she was dead? Where did she go? She stares at her hand, at her murderous, violent, death-dealing hand and she is sure of only one thing – she has come back from the dead, but she has come back wrong.

'Have you checked for an inhibitor chip?' Lando asks suddenly. 'It was before my time but I know that Palpatine used clones with a biochip to destroy the Jedi during the Clone Wars. They were surgically implanted in the brain of every clone embryo during development. If he's a clone, maybe he has a chip.'

Poe trots over to a console and taps some commands. 'No one's checked him for anything, as far as I know, but I should be able to scan for anything unusual from here. The ship he's on has just dropped out of hyperspace.'

There is no reaction from the man on screen to whatever is happening in his cell, but Poe is able to report back only a short while later. 'There's no chip that any type of scan can detect, no scarring of any kind to indicate medical intervention internally or externally.'

'Then maybe he's been genetically altered in some way. Can you run a comparison between the genetic pattern of the real Ben Solo and this man?'

'We don't have a copy of Kylo Ren's genetic pattern on record, or any way of getting hold of a sample of the original. I could maybe extrapolate something from Leia's data but it's not going to give a definite answer to the level of detail we need.'

Slowly, Rey returns her attention to what is happening behind her, to the room she is in and to the immediate requirements of her situation. The man in the cell needs her, no matter how she has changed and now is not the time for ruminations on the nature of existence. 'I have a sample of the original,' she offers slowly. 'You need skin cells, or a hair follicle or something like that, don't you?'

Poe gives her a look, and it is not friendly. 'I need anything that might hold DNA, teeth, hair, body fluids. You got Kylo Ren's body fluids on you, Rey?'

She flushes slightly. 'I have his clothes. He was wounded, his stomach, leg. There's blood.'

Of course she has his clothes, she wasn't just going to leave them lying on the floor of Palpatine's cavern and fly away into the sunset. She had had nothing left but his clothes and it had seemed so odd to see them just arranged there, abandoned, that she'd folded them up and stashed them in the back of Luke's X-wing to deal with when she was ready. She even kept the boots, although that seems like a slightly more bizarre decision right at the moment.

Poe just nods and Rey threads her way back through the camp to where she parked the ship. It is fully dark now, and the mood of the Resistance has noticeably changed. There are far fewer people still out in the open, and from the various tents and shelters which have been pitched beneath the trees come the faint sounds of other, more private parties. Those people who are still abroad are standing in huddles, deep in conversation rather than dancing and their expressions are serious. From all sides Rey hears whispers, and they are all repeating the same name. Assumptions are running unchecked through the impromptu celebrations on Ajan Kloss, but now, everyone has heard the rumours and everyone wants to know if they are true.

She throws the black uniform unceremoniously into a backpack and chucks a couple of more personal possessions on top – a change of clothes, the Jedi texts, both her lightsabers. She doesn't like the feel of the air, and although the Force is not sending her warnings, any good scavenger is always alert to danger. When she gets back to Poe and Lando, it is clear they have been talking, because while Poe is now stiffly formal, and won't look her in the eye, Lando has become even more avuncular than normal and there is a softness in his gaze that wasn't there before.

Poe sniffs and his nose wrinkles as Rey passes him Ben's clothes. They are stiff with saltwater, rimed with dust and the detritus of the pit, and sweat marks both collar and armpits. It is the blood on the torso that he scans though, and then compares the results to those of the man in the cell.

'There's no difference. No evidence of genetic alteration. Whoever that is, he has the same DNA as Ren.'

Rey crams the clothes back into her bag and stands there watching the holographic image, notes the way that the prisoner runs his hand through his hair repeatedly in a mannerism she doesn't recognise.

'He saved your life?' Lando queries softly, but he isn't looking for an answer. 'I knew there was still good in him. After Han I wanted to throttle him but….He was such a troubled kid. None of us knew how to help him.' He pauses. 'Do you?'

Rey is no longer sure. She would have known how to help Ben, but this may not be Ben, and she may not be who she thought she was either, given what just happened with Poe. But he is sitting there in front of her and the urge to go to him is as strong as it ever was. 'I know how to try,' she says.

'Clones can be imprinted with memories that may not belong to them,' he reminds her. 'They can be conditioned to appear to be completely convincing, accurate copies of the original genetic donor. He may not even know he's a clone. If you want to be certain who he is, you need to know something that only the original Ben Solo would know.' He bends closer and whispers something in her ear. 'That was the name I gave him when he was little. If he's really Ben, he'll recognise that name.'

She nods, and then looks over at General Dameron uncertainly. 'Shall I go and talk to him? Once we work out who he is we can decide what to do next.'

'The transport landed in Sector Four. This way.' She doesn't need the escort, but he marches her through the jungle to the most remote of the landing areas, the one furthest away from the main camp where the trees grow most thickly and the light is always dim. They pass the entire complement of the transport on the path, who salute Poe and then walk rather speedily back towards camp, where they will doubtless tell their tales and the rumours will spread faster than a quadjumper off Jakku.

Rey turns towards the crew cabins, and waits outside the one at the far end of the corridor, the one with the locked door panel and the recently discarded haul of weapons at the guardpost outside. Poe has gone to the bridge where he can watch the forthcoming encounter on a bigger screen, and from where, she knows, he can also cut off the oxygen supply to the cabin, or self destruct the ship, or take any number of actions which would bring the life of the man she is about to meet to an end.

She takes a deep breath and keys the panel open.

The man in the cell jerks up his head at the noise and his eyes narrow as he scans her swiftly, pausing at her belt and hips, leaning forward across the table to check that her hands are empty. He is inspecting her for threats, and when he finds none the set of his shoulders relaxes slightly and he meets her stare for the first time.

He is Ben. She is sure of it from that first look alone. Of course, he is dirty and dishevelled and the rings around his eyes tell her that he is exhausted, but he is Ben, sitting there in front of her with suspicion in his dark eyes and his jaw set into a stubborn line. He is also frightened, but hiding it as well as he can, although the smell of sweat in the air gives him away. There is even something in the Force as she looks at him, some kind of flicker which is not the old connection of the bond but some sort of recognition, nonetheless. She dare not kick open that particular door again until they are in a safer space so for now she simply puts as much reassurance into her stance as possible, opening her hands, relaxing her posture, telling him without words that she is not a threat. He is Ben and he is not dead, but sitting in front of her with his enormous hands still on the table as he waits for her to make the first move.

What is also patently clear, is that he does not know who she is. There is exactly no chance that if he remembered her at all he would still be sitting there, he'd already be across that table smiling that rare and precious smile of his and pulling her into his arms. He has spent some time away from his body today, as she has, and it appears that it has affected his memory, but since her own body doesn't seem to be obeying her as well as it did before she was dead, she can forgive him for this lapse.

He opens his mouth, changes his mind, closes it again and without thinking she darts back into the corridor and grabs something from the guardstation outside before returning, leaving the door conspicuously open. She sets a canteen of water on the table and he grabs for it immediately, draining it so quickly that a fair amount spills down his chin. He wipes his face with the back of his hand, smearing the grime over his skin and she sees the wrinkle of distaste as he notices the dirt and tries to wipe it off on the thin white material he is wearing. She doesn't like him in these clothes. She is so used to seeing him in black, and well dressed and elegant in black for that matter, that his current costume sends a twinge of pity through her. He gave his life to save her, he does not deserve this treatment.

'Do you want to use the fresher?' she blurts out, without caring too much what Poe will say, but Ben's eyes widen slightly and she can feel the relief and even gratitude in him.

He nods, but he doesn't speak, and his eyebrows lift as he gives her an expectant look. Maybe he has forgotten language as well, and she will need to teach him again.

She spins on her heel and retraces her steps into the corridor, giving him a small smile of encouragement as he follows. He is limping heavily on one leg and the way he carries himself is too careful, as if he doesn't trust his body not to let him down. She sees that he has not been provided with shoes and his feet leave traces of blood on the floor. The fresher is located around the first bend on the right and it is small and basic, sonic only, no water, but he still gazes around as if it is the most wonderful thing he has ever seen. She demonstrates the controls quickly and then stands, waiting for questions, acknowledgement, some kind of a reaction but the one she gets is not what she was expecting. He raises his hands to the fastenings of the flimsy paper suit he is wearing, preparing to take it off and his head tilts to one side, watching her, considering.

She blushes and retreats into the corridor, sealing the door shut on his privacy and takes a few deep breaths. Ben is alive. She lets the feeling sink in, absorbs the knowledge into her heart and feels it swell as it starts beating again, and for the first time since she flew away from Exegol she feels truly herself. It is a simple matter to use the Force to strip every crew cabin of its spare clothing, and even simpler to yank every available uniform which might possibly be the right size out of the Resistance stores buried elsewhere in the jungle. She even summons his old boots from the X-wing and leaves everything in neat piles outside the fresher door. Then she goes back to the cabin to wait, struggling to control her smile.

He takes some time to return, peeking his head around the doorframe to see if she is waiting before stepping inside. He is still tired, but something in his bearing has shifted and he holds himself with more confidence now. His hair is clean and has been combed, but it still falls in waves around his ears and he has chosen a pale cream and beige ensemble consisting of darker, form fitting trousers with a loose white shirt and a tunic which is half open and secured with a belt. She is pleased to see that the black boots are back, which at least justifies her rescue of them from Exegol. He jerks the edge of his tunic down under her scrutiny and the pale skin stretched across his cheekbones colours slightly. She is so pleased to see him she can barely hold it in.

She sits in the chair he occupied previously and he pulls out one she retrieved from the guardpost outside the door, cramming his limbs under the table and folding his hands carefully on top.

Then he bends forward. 'Who am I?' he says.


	4. Chapter 4

Rey takes a long, slow breath to allow herself time to think. There are two options. She can tell him that he is a galactic war criminal, captured by his enemies and about to face trial and execution, or she can tell him that he is a clone created by a power mad tyrant who planned to occupy his body and use it to rule the galaxy. Neither option is particularly appealing. Instead, she decides to stall, to see how much of his memory he has lost.

'What's the last thing you remember?' she asks.

He runs a hand through his hair. She doesn't recall Ben ever doing this, but for quite a lot of the time she'd known him he'd been wearing a mask, so this new habit may not be significant.

'I woke up on the floor. Then people started shooting at me. Why?' There is a hint of challenge in his tone, despite the restricted circumstances in which he finds himself.

'I think you surprised them, coming out of the smoke like that.' She doesn't mean to do it, but she runs her gaze down his chest as a flash of that image, all long limbs and curly hair burns in her mind's eye.

He flushes dully and looks away and she is ashamed for a moment. 'Who are you?' he asks bluntly and there is more than a hint of challenge now.

'I'm Rey.'

'Rey what?'

'Rey Skywalker.' This is a stupid thing to say, she realises. In fact, appropriating the Skywalker name when the last of them is not, in fact, dead, now seems more like an act of theft than the tribute she had intended it to be.

'Skywalker,' he muses. 'Like Luke Skywalker, the Jedi Knight.'

'Yes,' she breathes. 'Do you know him?' If there is anything that will jog his memory, it is surely this. She has seen the recordings of Crait and she knows that his last interaction with his uncle did not go well.

'I know of him,' he replies, with an indifferent shrug. 'Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, led a mission to destroy the first Death Star at the battle of Yavin, fought in the battle of Endor, opened the first Jedi training temple in the New Republic era, then disappeared. I assume you're his daughter.'

She waits for more, and she waits for so long that the silence grows uncomfortable.

'Did I get it wrong?' he asks, frowning.

'No, you're quite right. But – how do you know about Luke?'

'Does it matter?' he queries and he leans forward a fraction. 'Who am I, Rey Skywalker?'

His voice is taut, without the smug arrogance that characterised their interactions when he was Kylo Ren and she feels the frustration beneath it. 'That's what I'm here to find out,' she answers. 'You were found on a planet called Exegol. What do you remember of it?'

'Exegol,' he repeats. 'Location – Unknown Regions. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – Hask desert, Hon Zduul plateau, Sadow escarpment, Sith Citadel.'

He sounds like an encyclopaedia. There doesn't seem to be any emotional attachment to his recitation of these facts. His expression does not shift, he does not display any flicker of awareness that this was the place that he fought and died.

'It is also,' he continues. 'Very cold.' That hint of challenge is back and the look he gives her makes her blush and glance away. 'I'm grateful for the clothes.'

She sits back. 'Do you remember what you were doing on Exegol?'

'I don't remember anything,' he replies, thrusting his hand through his hair in what she thinks must be a nervous tic. 'About myself, anyway. I remember that the people shooting at me were armed with Glie-44 blaster pistols manufactured by Eirriss Ryloth Defense Tech which is a model favoured by the Resistance. I also remember that this ship is a YC-123B transport hauler out of the Corellian Engineering Corporation, 27 metres long, equipped with CEC-3900hh ion engines, at least one of which has been damaged and requires heavy maintenance. By the state of the internal quarters I'd say this ship has seen better days and is probably nearing the end of its useful lifespan but that fact that it is still being used suggests that there are no credits to pay for maintenance or anything else, which again, points towards the Resistance. Luke Skywalker was also a well known Resistance sympathiser, which means that I'm being held prisoner by the Resistance, of which you are part. The fact that your friends tried to kill me without warning and that I was captured on a planet with a Sith Citadel, added to the fact that I appear to be able to repel blaster bolts with my mind leads me to believe that you think I'm your enemy, and you think I'm probably quite a powerful enemy at that.'

He leans forward to stab the table with his finger and the challenge in his tone has escalated into outright hostility. 'So I'll ask you again – who am I, Rey Skywalker?'

He is actually quite bright, Rey realises, and also quite observant. She has never considered what attributes he must have possessed to have made it to Supreme Leader but it appears that stupidity was not one of them. He is going to puzzle this out fairly quickly unless she does something to distract him. Given what she knows of his temper, if he doesn't regain his memory it is possible, likely even, that he will soon lose patience with her and attempt to fight his way out of captivity, in which case Poe will attempt to kill him. If he does remember who he is Poe will also attempt to kill him, although he will go through the farce of a trial first. Rey is starting to see that there is no way out of this that doesn't involve her doing something that the Resistance will have cause to regret.

She waggles her fingers and the canteen of water from which he drank earlier floats into the air.

He stares at it with an expression of wonder on his face. 'How are you doing that?'

'I'm a Jedi,' she answers. 'I'm controlling it with the Force.'

'I've heard of the Force,' he murmurs, without taking his eyes off the bottle.

She smiles as the enormity of the gift she has been given reveals itself. Here is a Ben Solo who has lost his memory in death, but seemingly retained everything else he had in life, his powers, his knowledge of the world around him, his intrinsic character. But he does not remember Kylo Ren, or any of the awful decisions that led him to become that persona in the first place – here is a Ben Solo who, until or unless his memories return, now has the opportunity to start again, to make different decisions. Here is a Ben Solo reborn.

'I don't know who you are,' she says, and she expects he will be able to sense the truth of her words. 'We've only just met, but I feel like we have a connection. You can use the Force, the same way I can, but there are two sides to it – powerful light, powerful dark - and it's up to you to choose a side. The people who shot at you – they weren't sure which side of the Force you're on.'

He considers this for a while. 'Is that why I'm being kept here? So that the Resistance can work out which side I'm on?'

'Exactly,' she smiles and gently lowers the bottle back onto the table.

'Will you teach me to do that?' he asks, with such hunger in his voice that she feels her smile broaden.

'Gladly. But not here. We need to find a safer place.' She suspects that his memories will return more quickly once he reconnects with his powers, and with her through the bond, but that is not something she wants to initiate here, when she knows that Poe is listening from the cockpit.

As if on cue, General Dameron's voice cuts through the speakers in the ceiling. 'Ask him if he remembers the name, Rey. The one Lando told you.'

She shakes her head. 'He won't, not yet. There's no point in asking.'

'There's no point in asking because he isn't who you think he is,' Poe's voice is hard. 'We should finish this now and tell everyone what we've done. Don't drag it out.'

Ben is glancing between her face and the ceiling and his brow is furrowed as he struggles to understand the riddles in which Poe speaks. 'Is that your commanding officer?' he asks.

'No one tells me what to do,' Rey replies, and this statement feels like a revelation. She has spent months falling into line, training to be a Jedi and getting blamed for it as if it were a selfish act. Now that she thinks about it, she feels as if her whole life has been a succession of other people deciding what she should do – from the parents who had left her, to her surrogate family with the Resistance, to her grandfather and the horror he had wanted to inflict. Now she is standing up for herself. 'We're leaving,' she says, to both the man in the room and the man in the ceiling.

She strides for the door, jamming it open with her mind as Poe attempts to seal it shut and once outside, she grabs her pack from the guardpost where she'd left it. 'Stay behind me and do exactly as I say,' she orders.

'Are you sure this is a good idea?' Ben seems surprisingly reluctant to follow her.

'Would you rather stay here and have people start shooting at you?'

'I suspect people will start shooting at me if I go with you,' he grumbles. 'How am I supposed to defend myself?'

'Just do what you did last time. Stand still and put your hands over your eyes.' She flicks him a smile.

'That isn't funny.' It doesn't sound like he has much of a sense of humour, but she suspects that has nothing to do with his memory loss.

She heads for the galley, tips out all the rations she can find into a spare pack and hands it to him. Then she makes for the main cargo compartment and appropriates the largest tent she can find, along with sleeping, cooking and medical equipment and anything else she thinks she might need for a protracted stay in a forest. She gives all the equipment to him to carry and he shoulders it without complaint. She is aware that Poe will have tripped the self destruct function and has probably left the ship already; there are likely to be only a few minutes more on the countdown, so she is annoyed when Ben hangs back at the top of the exit ramp.

'Why are you helping me escape?' he asks. 'You said the Resistance are holding me while they work out what side I'm on – if I escape won't that mean I've chosen the wrong side?'

She gives him another grin, but his face is serious. 'I don't care what they think. I already know what side you're on. Mine.'

'That remains to be seen,' he answers and her smile falls away. From his perspective, they have only just met and his words remind her that despite the fact he once died for her, she doesn't know Ben Solo very well at all.

She races down the ramp, hearing the heavy clang of his footsteps behind her and the minute the toe of her boot meets the damp mulch of the forest floor she realises she has made a mistake. General Dameron has had too much time to marshal his forces and there are a number of Resistance fighters stationed between the trees, all armed with blaster rifles. The aftermath of the party has probably prevented many more from joining, but there are enough to cause a problem, especially since Poe has placed them in a semi circle and Rey and Ben are threatened with muzzles on all sides.

'Rey,' yells Poe. 'Think about what you're doing. Don't throw your life away for him.'

Rey fumbles for Luke's lightsaber in her pack, depresses the switch and brings it up into a defensive posture. She can hear the muttering in the air, feel the restlessness of Poe's troops as they face a person they know is not an enemy. And then someone realises who is at Rey's side.

'That's Kylo Ren,' shouts a voice, and the shooting starts before Poe even has time to order it.

A beige blur in her vision is Ben ducking behind her as she whirls the saber, deflecting bolts into the ground. The air fills with the whine of plasma discharge, the shriek of high energy particle beams scorching the air as the forest turns white around her with the glow of so many weapons. She has to keep still and present as much of a shield as possible so that Ben will be safe behind it. His instinctive use of the Force on Exegol protected him before, but she does not dare trust to it again, and she will not allow him to die while she can find any means to prevent it.

A heavy hand lands on her shoulder, distracting her. 'Have you got another one of those?' he yells in her ear, pointing at the lightsaber. 'I want to help.'

Something in the air behind her shifts and she can feel that the engines on the transport are powering up as the self destruct programme reaches its final stage.

'When I say run, you run for the speeders,' shrugging him off, she nods over to the left.

'Yes, but Rey –'

'Ready?' There is so much energy building behind her it makes her teeth itch.

'But Rey –'

The energy reaches a crescendo, the dramatic wail of the engines now obvious to everyone in the landing area and the frequency of the blaster bolts begins to lessen as the Resistance fighters see the danger they are in and begin to back away. There is a moment of complete silence, and the forest holds its breath.

'Run!' she shouts, and sprints as fast as she can in the direction of two speeders tethered to their moorings across the other side of the clearing. After only a few paces she realises that she has utterly outpaced him, since she is running with the enhanced speed of the Force and Ben is struggling some way behind her with a heavy pack and an injured leg that she has completely forgotten.

The transport explodes and she sees it happen in slow motion, the moment of time elongated as blue flame blooms in the engine cavities, then spreads upwards and outwards, rippling through the hull and turning red as it passes. All the oxygen is sucked into the nascent explosion and Rey has a second in which to reach out her hand and yank Ben forward, out of the way, depositing him with an awkward tumble on top of the second speeder, while she vaults onto the first. There is a tremendous concussion as the ship begins to rip itself apart.

She fires up the repulsor engines, motions a hand to twitch the mooring cables out of the way and boots up the throttle, jetting off into the forest.

'But Rey –' Ben calls from behind her. 'I don't know how to fly.'

She looks back over her shoulder and he is just sitting there, a leg on either side of the craft, poking at a button with an expression which is half panic, half disgust. She has a sudden, fleeting desire for the Supreme Leader who once chased her in his TIE fighter over the Pasaana desert at low altitude and high speed to see what he has now become, and then she bites her lip and turns back. Behind the helpless pilot, Resistance soldiers who have been knocked flat by the power of the shuttle's destruction are crawling back to their feet, guns raising and even as she reaches Ben's speeder and stretches down for his hand, the blasters are beginning to fire.

Luckily, he has retained something of his previous athletic ability and he clambers onto the seat behind her nimbly enough and then his arms wrap around her waist and there is an explosion inside her nearly as powerful as that of the transport. She hurtles through the trees, dodging streamers of blaster fire as well as she is able and all the time she feels Ben's body against her back, warm and alive as his heart thuds in his chest and his breath is hot on her neck. He is alive, and they are free, free of the dirt of Exegol and the trauma of past sins, free of the Resistance, the First Order, the Jedi and the Sith, free of death and together as they were meant to be.

He leans forward and for a second she thinks he has remembered who he was, and he is going to tell her that he feels the same, but instead he shouts a question into her ear that she doesn't want to hear. 'Am I Kylo Ren?' he asks.

The world goes dim for a second and Rey's hands seem to be losing their grip as they fall from the controls and she finds herself relaxing, flopping bonelessly backwards against his chest as he gives a squawk of alarm and pushes forward, taking over the steering and, through a process of trial and error, locates the landing sequence. There is an odd roaring in her head and something seems to be wrong with her side, as it feels wet to the touch. She raises her hand to her face, finding that her fingers have been painted red for some unknown reason.

She says, 'Ben?'

'Am I Ben?' he asks immediately but she doesn't answer, because the trees around her have begun a slow and stately dance and the edges of her vision are going black and the very last thing she feels is his arms coming up to catch her as she falls.


	5. Chapter 5

When she wakes, Rey is stiff and sore. There is a waterproof sleeping pad beneath her which does little to camouflage the roots on which she is lying and her stomach has been bandaged so tightly she can barely breathe. Pain pulses along her veins, spreading out from a central spike around which the wheel of agony turns. She cracks her eyes open to find that she is lying next to a small fire, which crackles merrily as it eats the sticks which are sustaining it. Past the flames, she catches sight of a mess of poles, struts and canvas polymer tumbled in a heap on the ground. Ben heaves into view, blocking her view of whatever has happened to the tent.

'Don't try to move,' he orders, stepping across the hearth and kneeling on the leaf litter next to her. 'You've been shot. I treated it with bacta patches from the medical kit but you won't be healed fully until morning. I found a sedative you can have if the pain is too much.'

She tries to shake her head, but the action sends a jolt of anguish along her nerves and she regrets it immediately. She tries to relax and reaches out into the Force to probe her body – the damage to her stomach is mostly superficial, and it is healing, but she has lost quite a lot of blood. It will take a few days before she is back to full fitness. There is a soft brush of something on her upper arms and she looks up to find him bending over her, his face a mask of concentration as he pulls a blanket up over her chest, trying not to disturb her wound. Then he returns to the other side of the fire.

There is something about his face in the firelight that calls to her. She remembers how the mechanical energy release of combustion alters his face like magic, casting a spell that smooths the hard lines of his cheeks, tempers the darkness in his eyes, makes his mouth soft. She loves how he looks in this light.

'Are you hungry?' he asks. 'I have rehydrated vegetables and some type of protein. It's white, so it could be anything.'

She is about to tell him that unless she is sure that the meal is plant based, she will not be touching it, but then she stops. She has been vegetarian for as long as she can remember, because killing animals feels both cruel and wasteful in a galaxy of limited resources where everything is connected together by a cosmic thread of hidden power. But then the smell of the meal drifts over from the container in which he has been stewing it, and it makes her mouth water. She hasn't eaten meat in so long that she finds herself wondering what it tastes like on her tongue, if the texture will be satisfying as she chews, if it will fill her belly in a way that endless polystarch cannot. This is food that Ben has cooked for her, and she decides that she will eat it, whatever it contains.

'Thank you.'

He is back across the fireplace with a plasteel cup as soon as she has accepted, placing it carefully within easy reach and then retreating to his own sleeping pad. After a short effort she realises that she will not be able to sit up without a great deal of pain and she slips back under the blanket again, deciding to try the food in the morning. Ben doesn't notice, he is staring sightlessly into the fire, and she is unable to read his thoughts.

His eyes focus on her eventually and when he speaks, the cut of his voice is at odds with the half daze of memory into which she has slipped. 'What's my name?' he asks. 'I know you know who I am. I don't appreciate being lied to.'

She sighs, and closes her eyes again, because lying to him will be easier that way. She can tell by his tone that he has run out of patience with asking the same question. 'The Resistance were shooting at you because you bear a passing resemblance to a First Order officer named Kylo Ren. He's dead, but no one found his body so they think there's a chance that he's you.'

He considers this for a second. 'And you don't think they're right?'

'I don't. You're nothing like he was. I helped you escape because I didn't think the Resistance should be allowed to execute you for the crime of looking like someone else.'

'Then who is Ben?' he snaps.

'Ah, Ben,' she takes a deep breath. 'I'm sorry about that. I was losing blood, and probably delirious and for a minute you reminded me of an old friend of mine. He was…very dear to me.'

He considers that for even longer while she keeps her eyelids shut and her breathing calm. It is a very good thing that the bond between them is not active because she is sure she would never have gotten away with such a falsehood if they were still connected by the Force across time and space.

Eventually he appears to give up. 'I still feel like there's something you're not telling me,' he mutters sourly, and she wonders if there is still a hint of the link there after all.

There is a rustling sound and a peek from the corner of her eye reveals that he is now lying full length, with his hands folded over his stomach, peering up into the jungle canopy high above.

'Where are we anyway?' he asks.

'Ajan Kloss.'

'Ajan Kloss,' he repeats. 'Location – Outer Rim, Cademimu sector, moon of Ajara. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – mosquitos the size of dinner plates. Inhabitants – hostile.'

His breathing evens out into sleep before she has finished smiling and she follows him not long afterwards, entering dreams which are surprisingly, not riven by nightmares.

She is so tired that the sun is already hot on her face when she wakes up. Although the jungle is dense here, patches of light do penetrate it and she has been unfortunate enough to go to sleep right underneath one. The brilliance of the light against her eyelids ensures that she will not be able to drift off into slumber again. She sits up, stretching, knocking over the congealed dinner of the night before and she jumps to her feet, cursing quietly, both at her clumsiness and at the continued ache in her side. The fire has gone out and from across the other side of the blackened twigs Ben still snores, lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his body and his blanket thrown into a crumpled heap.

She takes a moment just to stare at him, for this is a side of him she has only seen once before. Once, when he was unconscious on the floor of Snoke's throneroom she watched him sleeping and wondered whether or not she should kill him but now as she stands there she feels only gratitude that he is still alive. Of course, he is a shadow of his former self – he does not remember who she is, or what they were together, but he is also not tormented by the ghosts of his past and he sleeps soundly, his face relaxed, as untroubled by nightmares as she was. She turns her face to the light and happiness rises to match it, as brilliant as the sunshine. The battle is over, the Resistance have won and here she is, free and alone with the man who is her other half.

She has not changed her clothes or bathed in many hours and there is a large patch of crusted brown blood down the front of her top, splashes all over her leggings. She steps away from the campsite and spreads her awareness until the sound of water fills her senses. Ajan Kloss is a jungle, and cenotes are plentiful; there is one within a short walk. She collects some supplies and a change of clothes and heads out without waking him.

The entrance to the underground lake shows evidence of use, there is a faint path through the jungle as she gets closer which leads down a set of natural steps and Rey hops from rock to rock to reach the bottom of the massive pool. The water is so clear and still it almost looks as if it is not there at all and she can see the sand which carpets the bottom, the small rocks near the edge picked out in crystal detail. She drops her clothes on a large boulder, intending to scrub them clean with the soap she has brought once she has finished bathing and then she struggles with the bandage around her waist. It has been wrapped so neatly any medical droid would have been proud of the workmanship and underneath the bacta patches are applied in a textbook display of precision, covering her wounds at the precise depth and angle to secure maximum healing. Already the skin underneath is knitted, although the whole area is still red and she can't touch it without wincing.

She lets her hair down and steps carefully into the water, which is so cold it takes her breath away and she ducks underneath before she can lose her nerve, swimming for a few minutes to brush off the worst of the chill. Then she washes her hair, sluices the dirt and stress of the last day from her skin, finds a rare patch of sun and floats on her back in it for long enough that time ceases to pass. There are birds in this forest and their voices are loud, calling to each other amongst the trees as they go about their morning routines. Listening to their song, she misses the first few noises but eventually a scraping from the bank catches her attention as a rock slips somewhere and there is a crash in the undergrowth.

Quickly, she puts her feet down, standing with the lake waters lapping around her waist as her eyes blink to identify the threat. Ben is standing on the bank, with a bag in his hands, caught in the act of retreating back up the path. She doesn't know how long he has been there. She isn't sure what he's seen but the pond is so clear and the fact that the water only covers her middle suggests that he has seen everything she has to offer. She isn't sure what to do. He turns his face away but his cheeks are bright red as he hurries to retrace his steps.

'Sorry,' he calls. 'It was so quiet. I didn't realise you were here.'

What is the right response in this situation? Rey knows what she wants – yesterday she kissed this man, and she would never have taken that first step if she didn't intend to complete the journey – but things have changed. He won't remember the kiss, or what it meant, and he is clearly embarrassed to have disturbed her bathing. She doesn't want this to be awkward so she attempts to act naturally.

'It's alright,' she shouts, waving her arm at him. 'Come in and join me.'

He almost runs back up the path.

She frowns as he disappears, and, too disturbed to continue, completes washing her clothes in silence, and then, dressed in a fresh tunic and leggings, trudges back towards the camp with the dripping roll of fabric under her arm. By the time he bothers to return, his face slightly pink, Rey has packed up the half assembled tent, tidied away the sleeping pads and kicked apart the evidence of the fire. They cannot stay here. The path to the cenote means that this area is inhabited and she must find somewhere safer to stay before she attempts to retrieve his memories.

He will not look her in the face as he slings his bag over the back of the speeder with the others.

She ignores his childish reaction and points at the seat. 'Get on,' she orders. 'I'll teach you to drive.'

The eagerness with which he mounts the machine tells her that he is not a man who relishes being as helpless as he was yesterday and she already knows he will take to flying easily. She hops up on the running board and demonstrates the controls, leaning across his lap to point them out. 'Ignition. Accelerator. Brake. Repulsor field control for landing - you already know that one. Cruise control. Altitude indicator. Speed indicator. Navcomp for directions. It's easy. Just turn it where you want it to go.'

She is very close to him, aware of the warmth of his hip where it rests against her side, the clean smell of his hair fresh in her nostrils when he runs his fingers through it, pushing it back. He has seen her naked. She has had the same privilege. They have kissed. There is a tingle of something in the air between them as she delivers the commands in a direct, no nonsense voice. She feels a heat low down in her stomach and she wonders if he feels it too.

She jumps back as he starts the engines, jerks too hard on the accelerator and the vessel rises vertically from the forest floor. He yanks on the controls, but his touch is clumsy and the responsive steering of the speeder turns directly into the massive trunk of the nearest tree. She hears his yelp of alarm, watches him overcompensate as he tugs hard on the controls, leaning to one side and then he actually manages to tip the speeder so hard he falls off and she has to reach out and kill the engines remotely to stop it flying off into the distance.

Ben sits up, rubbing an elbow and covered in leaves. His face is dark with anger. 'I don't think I'm cut out to be a pilot,' he says.

Rey doesn't know what to say and for the first time she starts to wonder if he is a clone after all. His father was a pilot, his uncle was a pilot, he is as strong with the Force as she is – he cannot possibly fail at this. 'Get back on and try again,' she orders.

He hits a tree. Then he manages to plough the entire right hand side of the craft into the ground, knocking all the cargo to the floor and leaving her to pick it up while he walks around the clearing kicking things. Ben Solo is appalling at driving. Rey finds this extremely hard to believe, but the day is fast turning into afternoon and she doesn't want to stay here any longer, especially since his experiments in crashing are making quite a lot of noise and she doesn't know how far away from the Resistance base they actually are.

She climbs back into the pilot's chair and, very reluctantly, he clambers on to sit behind her. She waits for him to put his arms around her waist. This speeder isn't really meant for two, and there is no harness in the back to secure him in place. If he doesn't hold on to her, he may well fall off. She hears the flick as his hair is raked back again, and she decides that that habit is going to become quickly annoying.

'Just one thing before we go,' he says slowly, and she notes that he has waited until she can't see his face to broach whatever subject is coming. 'I don't want you to get the wrong idea.'

'About what?'

'This morning when you – ah – wanted me to join you swimming. And yesterday when you said I reminded you of someone you care about. I… think you might be projecting. I think you might have wanted to rescue me from the Resistance because I remind you of this other person, this Ben. But I don't know who I am and for all I know I may have a wife out there somewhere, and children, and I don't want you to get the wrong idea and think that I'm open to something I'm not, just because we're alone together in the middle of nowhere.'

He has finished in a breathless rush and Rey finds her hand tightening on the throttle. The arrogance of the man is astounding. But maybe it shouldn't be. He'd offered her his hand twice in the past and blithely assumed she'd take it; he had always had an overinflated sense of his own attractiveness.

'You think I want to sleep with you,' she states and she carries on as he tries to stammer some kind of reply. 'I wouldn't sleep with you if you paid me.'

He shuts up, fast. 'I'm certain I'm not the sort of person who ever needs to pay,' he says stiffly.

She is angry as she fires up the craft and prepares to leave. 'You look exactly like the sort of person who pays for sex to me,' she says.

She sets off so fast he nearly falls off and then accelerates to top speed while racing through the jungle, using the full range of her Force enhanced senses to anticipate and avoid collisions. Soon, she breaks through the trees and beneath the speeder the ground falls away into a valley below. She pulls the vessel into a sharp dive and he manages only a couple of seconds before giving up, flinging his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her back as they fall. She feels the anger recede slowly and it dies back to a dull simmer as she levels out, racing through the forest for the next few hours with Ben glued to her back, apologising with a continuous hug.

The day is stretching towards evening before she pinpoints a likely place to stop for the night. The canopy is thinner here but still dense enough to hide a speeder and she is sure that the interior of Ajan Kloss is sufficiently remote that the light from a fire will not be noticed. There is water enough in a cenote close by so she drops beneath the trees, mooring the speeder to a large trunk and switching off the engines.

This is where they will stay. This is where she will teach Ben Solo to use the Force.


	6. Chapter 6

She begins with the tent. Or at least, she tries to. This is a two man plas-tent, designed for quick deployment in emergency circumstances and it is supposed to be capable of full inflation in only a few minutes. Ben has made an absolute mess of it. This particular model should stand around two and a half meters high and have a central living unit with a smaller sleeping module on one side and an all purpose equipment store on the other, with large round windows in every wall. It looks like he has attempted to erect it by hand and as a result the two smaller units have become tangled together and the living space appears to be inside out and possibly also upside-down.

Rey sighs, and gives him a nasty look.

'I couldn't find the instructions,' he claims unconvincingly, as he begins to unpack the speeder.

'No one needs instructions to put up a tent,' she grits through her teeth, watching as the thing attempts to inflate and then gives up and flops flaccidly around on the floor. She raises a hand and tries to manipulate it into the correct position with the Force.

Instantly Ben is at her side. 'Show me how,' he demands.

'The Force is a connection that exists between all things,' she replies, turning to face him. 'Reach out and touch it.'

He closes his eyes but she waits, staring at him, while a small part of her attention is busy unravelling the tent. This will be the moment when he finds himself again and she doesn't want to miss it.

His face screws up with concentration, his nose wrinkles and he catches the tip of his tongue between his teeth in a manner that she can't help but find endearing because he is clearly trying so very hard – the effort makes him appear far younger than he really is. 'I feel it,' he says eventually and she holds her breath for the revelation. 'How do I make it do what I want?'

'You just ask it to.'

He tries again, with no visible impact on the world around him. The main section of the tent is standing and Rey is manipulating one of the modules into place. 'How, exactly?' he asks, cracking an eye.

She considers this. For her, use of the Force has always been an instinctive action, she simply wills something to happen and it usually does – even before she had any formal training she was able to master simple tasks on her own. It doesn't appear that he is so lucky. 'I don't know, you just do.'

He opens his eyes and his expression is dubious. 'Have you taught anyone to do this before?'

'Not really.'

He glowers at her. 'You're a terrible teacher.'

'And you're a terrible student.' She has the tent up properly now, and is beginning to levitate the equipment inside. 'Try something simple. Move the sleeping mats into the bedroom.'

He puts out a hand, imitating her gesture and she can feel the tremendous effort pouring off him, but the corner of one of the bedrolls moves so slightly it may just be the wind. There is an accusatory expression on his face.

She shrugs, 'Practise.'

She hopes that he will get there eventually. This is the man who managed to prevent her from pulling a ship out of the sky on Pasaana, the man who stopped the swing of her lightsaber with only the power of his mind but watching him struggle with something that used to come so naturally she wonders how much of his basic self he has lost. He seems unable to regain the skills he needs to fly, maybe he will be unable to manipulate the Force in this way as well.

She makes a fire and sets out the cooking equipment, rehydrating a ration pack in a pan and putting it over the flames to warm through, before digging out the glowpanel she appropriated from the Resistance shuttle and suspending it from the apex of the tent. She creates areas for stores, medical equipment, washing and waste, unpacks clothes onto portable shelves, she inflates chairs from packing cases no larger than a fingernail and she builds the travelling fresher at a suitable distance from the rest of the camp. Then she establishes an alarmed perimeter so that she will have a warning if anyone comes to call and goes back to see how Ben is doing.

The bedrolls are exactly one hand's breadth from where they began and he is sweaty, frustrated and obviously short tempered. She scrapes food into a bowl and hands him dinner. 'I know you can do this,' she says, in an attempt to be encouraging. 'How did you feel when you used the Force before, when the Resistance were firing at you?'

He pokes at the mush in the bowl. 'Terrified.'

She nods, pretends to be eating while she summons her lightsaber from her pack with the Force, ignites it remotely and waits until the very last second before shouting 'Duck!'

He sees the blue flame whirling towards his head and throws himself aside an instant before she says, 'Try it now.'

The first bedroll skims past her face and smashes into the side of the tent. The lightsaber comes back for a second pass, closer this time and he sprawls in the dirt to avoid it.

'There was no need for that,' he yells.

'You're angry,' she notes, unfazed. 'Try it again.'

He turns his head and the second bedroll flies past her so fast it misses the tent altogether and crashes into a tree behind. As well as his meal, he is wearing an expression of surprise, which quickly morphs into an air of pride, but Rey just shakes her head, disappointed.

'You need a trigger,' she says. 'Fear, anger, hatred, they'll give you the power you're looking for, but that path is too easy. It leads to the dark side.'

'What does that matter?'

'It matters.' She has lost her appetite. She would rather he lose his powers altogether than have him regress back into Kylo Ren. This is surely not why he came back from the dead. 'You need to find better triggers. What makes you happy?'

His face takes on a pensive expression, his brief triumph forgotten. 'I'm not sure.'

She has seen him smile exactly once, she knows what makes him happy, but given his speech this morning she is not sure that suggesting she kiss him again is going to be well received. 'What about your wife and child?' she suggests. 'Do they make you happy?'

'Do you think they exist?'

She shakes her head.

'Neither do I. I get the impression that whoever I am, I'm alone.'

She wants to reassure him that he isn't, but he is striding away and the perimeter alarm gives a warning as he exits the camp. She abandons her meal, retrieves the sleeping pads and heads for the tent, changing into the short trousers and vest which are most comfortable for sleeping in a jungle. It is never cold here, but the biting insects are a menace so she draws the netting over all the windows and pulls it taut over the door of the sleeping module.

She is not sure he is going to join her. In hindsight, she should perhaps have chosen two single tents, because the bedroom arrangement is cosy to say the least, and once the inflatable mattresses are side by side there is no space to slip a credit chip between them. She makes up his bed with the blanket he used yesterday and then tries to settle down but her heart beats too fast and she can't switch off. He has not regained his memories and all that she has achieved today is a demonstration that he leans towards the dark, even when he has no idea who he really is. She lies awake and listens to the howl of the primates living their simple lives in the branches, and she envies them.

She is still awake when the perimeter pings again late into the night but she pretends not to be, closing her eyes and lying on her side with her blanket around her waist. He hesitates as he unfastens the mosquito shield and she can feel his uncertainty as he wonders whether or not to climb in beside her, or disturb her by moving his pad into the living room. He chooses the former and there is some fiddling around before he slides in beside her, presenting her with the wide expanse of his back as the netting is sealed behind him. She lies next to him in the dark, and she can just see the shine of his skin in the dim light as she realises that she has forgotten to pack him any spare clothes for sleeping. They are very close, but she does not dare bridge the gap between them.

'The Resistance were right about me,' he murmurs. 'I'm your enemy.'

There is no victory in his words, he no longer seems proud of the fact that he has found a way to manipulate the Force using anger and fear, in fact, he sounds like something in him has broken. It must be terrifying, she thinks, not to know who you are. She suspects he would be even more upset if he realised that his suspicion is correct, from the perspective of the rest of the galaxy. But this is their little world, this room in this tent and so she stretches out her hand and, with fingertips that are soft and gentle and only shaking a little, she runs a line down his back. She isn't trying to start anything, she is just trying to let him know that she is listening and his response is a sigh, and a gradual descent into sleep.

In the morning when she wakes it takes her a moment to realise she has made a mistake with the sleeping arrangements. He is simply too big for a room this size, too tall and too wide and most of all, too heavy. She appears not to have moved but he has rolled over in the night and his arm is draped across her waist, trailing half way up her back where he is attempting to use her as an extra pillow, and she is supporting most of his - not inconsiderable - weight as he snores gently. She would be annoyed if it were anyone else, but it is Ben and he is right here, so close that she has a detailed view of the unmarked skin of his chest where she healed the scar she'd given him. She can see the pulse throbbing in his neck, hear the catch in his respiration that is driving the snores, and she can smell him, all hot and warm and cuddled around her. She wants to touch his face. She has only touched it once, just before he died and then for a few brief seconds, and it is too tempting to resist.

She wriggles just enough to slide her hand free and she lifts it to his cheek, hovering for a second while deciding whether or not to take the plunge. Her fingers remember what he felt like, her lips recall his taste, but her heart reminds her what was lost not long afterwards and it is fear of that loss that holds her back.

She delays too long and his eyes flicker open, soft with sleep before consciousness wakes in his gaze and he glances at her hand, outstretched but not yet touching. He doesn't recoil though, or push her away but something in the way his expression changes tells her he is sad. 'He was a lucky man, your Ben,' he whispers.

She withdraws her fingers as he rolls over awkwardly, but now she knows what she must do. He is getting up, yanking open the netting and allowing fresh air into their pod. 'I'm going for a swim,' he announces, and she knows he is only saying that to make sure she won't follow, but it doesn't matter.

Yesterday he reconnected with his powers and his memories didn't stir. Today she must make sure that he reconnects with her.

He strides away in the direction of the cenote clad in only his trousers while she stands at the door of the tent and admires him. He carries his strength lightly and he has lost that stomping, hunched gait he used back when they first met, but she knows how fast he can move, how high he can jump, how skilfully those arms can wield a lightsaber, even if he doesn't. When she is sure he is gone, she spends some time scouting the local area, ignoring the splashing and the muttered complaints as he grumbles to himself at the chill of the water. When the noise has died away and she is sure he is decent, she shows herself, disturbing him while he is scrambling back up the bank. This cenote is buried within the earth, half its roof having collapsed at some point in the past, which means that she is able to stand on the surface of the jungle and look down, while he clambers up out of the hole in the ground.

'Come here,' she calls, and it is not a request.

He freezes, straightens with a dark look on his face. 'How long have you been watching me?'

She jumps from the roof of the cenote, uses the Force to prevent herself hitting the water and then turns the energy to launch herself forward, landing lightly on the rock at his side. She raises an eyebrow at him. 'I have better things to do than stare at you all day. Do you want to learn to do that or not?'

He has no option but to follow her back up to the diving board she has chosen, standing there wreathed in sunshine with droplets glistening all over his naked chest and she feels it again, that low ache in her belly, the current in the air that sparks between them.

He just looks at her with an air of suspicion. 'How exactly did you do that?'

She closes her eyes to ignore the distraction. 'Reach out, feel the Force around you, become one with it, then let yourself fall into the void. When you want to stop, the Force will catch you.'

He peers over the edge. 'What if it doesn't?'

'Then you'll get wet. You might want to take your clothes off.' The grin she gives him is teasing as she steps out and trusts the Force to arrest her fall when she tells it to. As she lands on the bank without so much as a bead of water on her clothing a tremendous splash sends waves slapping at the rock behind her and she suppresses a smile before returning to the top of the bank.

He stamps back up to join her and while she waits she remembers that not only did she forget to pack sleeping clothes, she didn't pack him any other clothes either, which means that he is going to have to remove those wet trousers as well in the not too distant future. It is hard to stop the corners of her mouth from turning up. 'Congratulations, you became one with the water. Next time try to become one with the Force.'

She steps out into the empty air again, this time pivoting as she falls to give him a wave. He is off the top of the platform right after her, an expression of extreme concentration on his face but it makes no difference. The splash is higher, the waves are larger, and he looks thunderous as he regains the top of the cenote in her wake.

This time, she gestures him forward. 'Let go of your emotions. You are connected to everything, all around you. There is peace in that.' He teeters on the brink and she can see the tension in the set of his shoulders; he runs his hand through his hair with an impatient flick. He will fail again, she is sure of it, he will fall, and she wonders if this is what characterised his training last time, mistakes and disappointment. She steps to his side, ignores the likely objection, and takes a firm grip of his hand. 'Not with anger,' she says. 'With me.'

Then she drags them both off the cliff.

This time he is focused on the fact that she is holding his hand. In the split second of flight he glances down at it more than once and as a result it is not fear or anger that is controlling him when the moment comes to stop. She feels the flex of his power, a pent up bubble in the Force that pushes up beneath their feet, leaving them floating over the restless waves of the pool below, suspended. She has to divert the flow of strength so that they reach the bank safely, but he has demonstrated that the capacity is still within him, he just needs to channel it. When their feet touch the ground and she lets go of him it takes a second too long for his fingers to release hers. She retraces her steps to the jump point without attempting to hide her smile.

He doesn't look at her when he takes his place beside her again, but his manner is different and he stretches out his hand towards hers tentatively.

'I'm not your enemy,' she reassures him, reaching out to take it, but as their fingers touch he manages to pivot and the next thing she knows, she is falling backwards towards the water and he is leaning out over the edge with a smile on his face.

'I know,' he yells, and she is so surprised by the smile, by the wide, uncomplicated pleasure in it that she forgets what is happening and the icy water has closed over her head before she can stop it.

She emerges from the depths coughing and spluttering but it is impossible to be angry when this is only the second time in her life that she has been smiled at like that. It sets off something warm inside her, a chain reaction that burns off the cold and lights her up as she clambers out, her hair sticking to her forehead, her clothes dripping and goosebumps rising all over her skin. He is on the shore, waiting for her, still smiling, having obviously just made the jump on his own.

She rolls her eyes. 'You will take off your clothes and jump into the lake,' she says, injecting her words with all the Force compulsion she can muster.

'I will take off my clothes and jump into the lake.' His hands drop to the waistband of his trousers as he prepares to comply.


	7. Chapter 7

She folds her arms and waits as he steps towards the surface of the cenote, wondering how long it will take for him to realise. The catch of his trousers is undone and his toes have hit the water before he stops, shakes his head and looks back. 'I will take off my clothes and jump into the lake?' he blinks. 'What is that – mind control?'

'Yes. But it only works on a certain kind of person.'

He looks down at his loosened trousers. 'What kind of person?'

'An idiot.'

He backs out of the lake quickly and tries to kick off the worst of the damage but it is pointless. He is soaked through and so is she and they are going to have to walk back to camp together to dry off. 'Can you read minds as well as control them?' he asks as she leads the way.

'Absolutely. I could get into your mind right now if I wanted to, I could take whatever I wanted and you wouldn't be able to stop me.' That might be easier, she thinks, conscious that she is dripping all over the forest. She could just read his mind and let him learn whatever he wants from her training rather than going to these extreme lengths to get him to recover his memories on his own. She has half a mind to try before she notices he is hanging back.

'Have you read my mind already?' he asks, in a way that indicates he doesn't like this idea. 'Is that why you're helping me? Do I know things that might be valuable to the Resistance?'

She hasn't considered that before but he is probably right. The First Order has not been completely destroyed and there are probably secrets inside his head which could be useful in a galaxy in which the Resistance is still at war. Presumably this is the sort of information that Poe was intending to weasel out of him during a trial, or maybe barter out of him beforehand in exchange for leniency.

'What do you know of secret First Order weapons?' she asks out of interest.

'I know that the planet of Ilum has been transformed into a superweapon known as Starkiller Base, and I know that there is a fleet of _Xyston_-class Star Destroyers in the dockyards of Exegol.'

'You don't know anything that might be valuable to the Resistance,' she confirms. 'And no, I haven't read your mind without permission. Only a monster would do that.'

Back at the campsite, she disappears inside the tent to retrieve a couple of blankets, throwing one out to him and then she strips off and puts her pyjamas back on as both her changes of clothes are now wet. When she exits the tent, she finds that he has hung his clothes out to dry. He is wearing only a blanket round his waist and is looking quite uncomfortable about it.

'How do you know all this anyway, about planets and weapons and transports?' Some of his information is detailed, but it has not skipped her notice that some of it – such as Luke's location and the ultimate fate of Ilum - appears to be a year or so out of date.

He clamps his arms to his blanket, sits carefully on one of the chairs and then rearranges the folds of the cloth to ensure it isn't revealing anything. 'It's just in my head. I don't remember reading anything, or being taught – I just know.' He pulls a face. 'It's the same for you, isn't it? That's why you're such a bad teacher. You didn't learn any of the things you can do with the Force formally, you just know.'

She shakes her head. 'You can't expect to pick it up all at once. I had to learn, the same as everyone else. I had a teacher, and I read the Jedi texts and...'

'Stop,' he cuts in, his eyes shining. 'There are books? You have books on this? Where are they?'

'In the tent.'

He bends forward and his hand streaks out, sealing itself over the top of hers as he closes his eyes and focuses. The ancient tomes come careering out of the tent so fast and so randomly she has to duck her head to avoid being injured.

'You need more practice,' she says as he catches the works in his hands and opens the first with reverence.

There is a light in his eyes she has never seen before, an enthusiasm unlike anything he showed on the battlefield as he turns the page, and while she watches she loses him. There is no other description. He gives his attention to the book and forgets everything else. She asks him questions he doesn't answer, she offers him water he doesn't drink, she takes out her lightsaber and goes through a drill but he shows no interest. All he does is read. Pages that she herself has struggled with for days, arcane passages she had to spell out are treated with a fond smile and an indulgent shake of the head, and the only time he seems to remember her presence is when he asks her for paper.

'Paper?' she repeats incredulously. 'Who has paper?'

'Or a datapad, or a holocron, or any kind of storage device. I need to make notes.'

She runs through the inventory of everything she threw together in the two minutes she had for packing and comes up blank. 'No holocrons here. There's probably a datapad with the technical manual for the speeder somewhere in the glovebox but you'd have to wipe it before you could use it and there won't be a lot of capacity.'

He levels her with a sharp stare. 'There's a technical manual for the speeder that explains how it works?'

'Of course.'

'Get it for me – right now,' he orders as if she has done something wrong and he has remembered that he used to rule the galaxy.

She fetches it with some ill concealed muttering about the ungrateful nature of the man and he snatches it away, spending the next two hours reading it instead of deleting the content. Once he has finished, he turns back to the books, tapping away as he makes notes.

She has only had a rudimentary education, she learned everything she knows through practical application or simulation and she probably hasn't studied as much of the ancient Jedi knowledge as she should have done since she stole the books from Luke. But here is someone who learns in a different way, and by the rapt attention he is giving the source material and his complete lack of any animosity or frustration towards something she knows is particularly complex, she divines that she is looking at a scholar. She may well also be looking at someone who is more intelligent than she is and she finds this thought mildly irritating.

He may be enjoying himself, but she is not, it is very boring just watching him slake his thirst for knowledge so she goes for a walk, identifies the nearest settlement and the best route to get there on the navcomp, then goes fishing for dinner and prepares a meal that he roundly ignores. When she is tired of occupying herself she goes to bed, and is only dimly aware of him joining her sometime later.

She wakes in his arms. It feels like a deliberate act because his left arm is under her head, her cheek is resting in the hollow of his shoulder and his right arm is attached to her hip but before she can start wondering how this happened, she realises he is awake. His chest rises and falls, taking her face with it, but there is no sound of snoring.

'Look down,' he says, and the brightness of his tone suggests he is expecting her to be impressed.

She attempts to peer over the massive hill of his chest but it is her proximity to the top of the mosquito net covering the door that really gives it away. They are floating in mid-air above the sleeping pads and Rey is certain that it is not her power which is being used to achieve this, but that is the least impressive part of this scenario.

There is no warning as her body wakes up, going from a state of slumber to a state of physical arousal in about as much time as it would take to sigh his name. He hasn't bothered to put on any clothes apart from his underwear and she is wearing shorts and a thin top with straps so there is quite a lot of her skin which is now touching his. Everywhere she touches him she tingles. Her fingers come alive, telling her that they are resting on his right nipple, that perfectly round, pert little button he flashed at her once when she was on Ahch-To and she can't stop them moving slightly, just to feel how smooth his skin is there, how it resists the pad of her finger. Her heart thuds in her chest, her face heats with a sudden glow and there is a rush of something low in her stomach and getting lower. She becomes conscious that her leg is flung over his thigh, she is half spread across his body and an image fills her head of how he might spread her further, how she might be stretched. Before she can stop it, the gusset of her shorts is damp, and he is going to feel it and wonder what it means so she wriggles to get free and prevent any further embarrassment. She does not want him thinking she wants to sleep with him when she has explicitly told him that she doesn't – his ego would be unbearable.

He feels the movement but his control of his power is not certain and he grapples for her even as his concentration slips and they fall the two or three feet back onto the sleeping mats. Rey's breath explodes from her chest as he lands heavily on top of her but it doesn't matter because his mouth is mere inches from hers, that expressive, mobile mouth with those lips he uses to signal all his emotions and the urge to kiss him is almost irresistible. She gazes into his eyes and she is sure that he is in there, looking back – her Ben, the man she redeemed from his past and held in the ruins of Exegol, the man she lost.

He rolls off her, scrambling away until he is crouched in the opposite corner of the tent and he runs an anxious hand through his hair. 'I'm sorry,' he says. 'I didn't mean to do that.'

She wraps her arms around her knees, pulling them to her chest and hoping that the flush on her cheeks will fade before he sees the impression he has made on her. 'Were you practising?' Her voice sounds shaky.

'Yes – I learnt that from the books. The core principle of Jedi teaching – control. Levitation through mediation. It's quite a simple technique but I found achieving the right breathing pattern quite tricky. Then I realised that you were doing it in your sleep so I thought that if I synchronised my breathing rhythm with yours I might be able to use it as a trigger and it worked. If I touch you I can use the Force more easily without getting angry, like yesterday when we jumped off the cliff and when I called the texts. I didn't think you'd mind me touching you.'

She pulls herself together. He is far more focused on learning than he is on her, she perceives, and it still doesn't appear that he remembers who he is. 'I don't mind you touching me,' she says, which is the understatement of the year. 'But a bit more notice might be nice.'

'Understood.' He stands, stretches, and then he gives her another smile, just a small one this time, the younger, more timid cousin of the big beaming grin she got yesterday but her heart flutters in her chest just the same. 'I think I'm ready for a lightsaber,' he says.

She considers what to do while she bathes, dresses and munches on the breakfast he has made – some kind of smoked fish omelette constructed from her catch of the previous evening and the result of his efforts foraging in the woods while she visited the cenote. She isn't sure if his ability to cook is something he found in the small print of the Jedi texts, or part of the knowledge bank he stores at the back of his mind. He tidies away with an energy and a fastidious attention to detail that suggests he is anxious to please and when she disappears off to the tent and returns with something held behind her back he can barely stand in the same spot without fidgeting.

She hands him a weapon and he stares at it, his shoulders falling. 'This is a stick, not a lightsaber.'

'It takes more than reading a few books to learn how to fight,' she states. 'Show me what you know of the Jedi forms.'

He doesn't even get the opening stance right and she is forced to take him, slowly and repetitively through the most basic of lightsaber techniques, correcting his footwork, showing him where his weight should be and where it should not, pushing his elbows down and his stomach in and by the time she is ready for lunch she is feeling quite pleased with herself. Books are useful, but there is really no substitute for experience, she tells herself. In contrast, Ben appears to be sulking, with his bottom lip stuck so far out it is nearly big enough to trip over.

After lunch she teaches him the second form and he does little better with that.

'Shoulders down,' she yells for the fortieth time. 'If you lift your arms on the turn you leave yourself open to a parry from below.'

'That's not what it says in the book,' he grits out as he tries again.

'I don't care about the book. I'm teaching you how to fight.'

'This isn't fighting. This is swinging a stick. A child could do this.'

'A child could do better,' she calls, and she sees the temper rising in his eyes.

'I'm not a child. Stop treating me like one.' He abandons the form and spins to face her, slinging his stick about in a one handed slash which was impressive when he still wielded the red lightsaber, but fails to intimidate her now.

'Then stop behaving like one.' She takes the opportunity to demonstrate her point, whirling as if she is going to strike him while he raises his hands in a defensive pose which is too high, and she hits him on the leg instead.

He winces, but his face tightens and he comes at her with a flurry of blows which are drawn from the pages of Jedi myths and legends, all fancy bladework and complex manoeuvres. Before she realises what is happening she has responded in kind, except that the two handed grip on the saber she usually favours has been jettisoned in favour of single, backhanded swipes which carry far more power, but are riskier than her usual style. He grits his teeth and the campsite is full of the sound of wood on wood as they duel amongst the trees. Their weapons clash, locking together and she struggles to match his physicality, he is too strong for her unless she uses the Force to bolster her body, so she throws restraint away and her next strike includes a blow from the Force delivered by her free hand.

He staggers, slips, but sheer anger drives him back to his feet and he fights back, flinging out his hand and launching her across the forest. At one time in her life the use of such a Force push would have had her crashing into a trunk and knocking herself out but she has got better at fighting since Starkiller Base and now she comes somersaulting back out of the trees, chopping at his head with a one handed strike. He simply stands there with his eyes closed, his stick held horizontally under his chin in a pose she recognises from the books as 'centre of being' and her blow deflects harmlessly. She swings again but he has deployed Force speed and he is no longer standing where he should be, or in fact, anywhere she can find him at all and she is obliged to hunt him around the clearing before he drops the Force stealth shield he is using and she can once again run to the attack.

Even though they are fighting with sticks in a training match she feels like she is losing, like the last time she lost to him, on the wreckage of the Death Star when the only way she could find to win was to stab him with his own sword while he was distracted. She will not allow herself to lose now, and a red rage fills her vision, narrowing her focus as her strokes become harder, aiming at the head, the legs, the groin, anywhere that this enemy may be vulnerable. She will not lose. Anger roars in her veins as she swings, parries, pokes holes in his defences until he finally makes a mistake and her stick lands hard on his knuckles, forcing him to drop his blade.

She comes in for the final blow, hurtling her weapon at his head hard enough to take it off but he looks into her eyes and there is shock on his face. 'Rey!'

She manages to turn her strike into the floor at the last minute but he is still standing there with his eyes wide, unable to disguise his surprise. 'We are still training, aren't we?' he asks and a rush of shame fills her, because he sounds so innocent and bloodlust is still powering through her veins.

She knows in that moment that she has lost control and she steps back, shaken.

He sucks his knuckles, still watching her warily. 'What this stick needs,' he says, giving it a kick. 'Is a crossguard.'


	8. Chapter 8

She tries for a laugh but it sounds awkward even to her ears. 'Lightsabers don't have crossguards. Not proper lightsabers anyway. Excuse me.' She hurries to the fresher and seals herself into the only place he won't be able to sneak up on her.

Then she cries. She doesn't recognise herself and she is beginning to be afraid of the person she is becoming. The loss of control she has just exhibited in the middle of a training duel, when, as the master, she should have been modelling correct behaviour and demonstrating how to be a Jedi to her student is the same lapse of judgement she made when choking Poe. She isn't sure where these emotions are coming from, but they are frightening – the anger she feels, the fury that springs from nowhere and does such damage – these do not feel like they belong to Rey Skywalker. Perhaps she is Rey Palpatine after all.

She wipes her face and straightens her hair in the mirror. She has been through so much, maybe the effort of holding herself together is starting to show. She died, she loved and she lost all in one day and yet she is still expected to be the adult in this situation, when all she feels like doing at the moment is crawling back to Ahch-To and asking Luke to tell her where she went wrong. She cannot possibly be expected to help Ben when she is apparently so much in need of help herself.

She exits the fresher and he looks up immediately, although one of the textbooks is open in front of him again; she feels his eyes on her as she marches to the tent and retrieves Anakin's lightsaber from her pack.

'Here,' she says, handing it to him. 'You're right, I've been treating you like a child. This is yours.'

He is supposed to be her other half, the matching part of the dyad, and although she has never understood what that means she decides it is time she learnt, and that starts with treating him more like an equal than a patient.

'Thank you, Master Skywalker,' he says, his dark eyes the size of small moons.

'Don't call me that,' she snaps, because the name sounds so wrong on his lips and the more time passes the more she thinks she never deserved to take that name in the first place.

'No, Master Skywalker,' he repeats, solemnly, taking the lightsaber from her as if it is a religious artefact.

'I think we should find the nearest town,' she suggests, wanting suddenly to get out of this camp and somewhere she can forget who she is supposed to be for a while. 'You need clothes and I need…company.'

There is a flash of something across his face, a look of hurt which is quickly buried and he bows his head to hide it. 'I'm ready to go now, if you like.' Standing, he clips the lightsaber to his belt where it belongs.

'The closest settlement is a two-hour ride away.' She heads for the speeder, suddenly all business. 'I've programmed the co-ordinates already. According to the navcomp it's a small logging town, with a trade area and a leisure complex so it'll have everything we need. The population is primarily Caphex, with a Reesarian presence so we shouldn't have any problems as long as we keep our heads down and don't cause any trouble.' With a significant look, she throws her lightsaber in her backpack and waits for him to do the same. 'Aside from the supplies, the most important thing we need is information. We escaped from the Resistance and I need to know if they've put a bounty on us, or if they'll just try to recapture us on their own. I imagine that'll depend on how well the clean-up operation with the First Order is going. If they're busy, they may well leave us alone, or they may be out hunting us right now – if that's the case we need to think about getting off-world as soon as possible.'

She slings a leg over the speeder and he settles in behind her easily enough, taking a loose grip on her waist without complaint. 'What do you mean – clean-up operation?'

She spends the rest of the journey filling him in on recent events, since, from the questions he asks, he appears to have no knowledge of the battle of Exegol, or even that of Crait, and the revelation that Starkiller Base has been destroyed also comes as a surprise. She relates these events dispassionately, focusing on armaments and troop movements, ships and commanders, as if she is reciting from a textbook and she does not mention her own role in proceedings, or that of his family. She tells him nothing with any personal connection and she is careful to refer to 'Supreme Leader Kylo Ren' at all times. She does not mention her own lineage and nor does she relate how either of them died. By the end of the journey she is starting to wonder how much longer it will be before he remembers these things on his own and how much longer she will have to carry the burden of all of this without someone to talk to about it. She knows of no one else apart from him who has come back from the dead, and she badly wants to share her experience, to see if together they can work out what has gone wrong.

The little town in the middle of the jungle is built entirely out of wood. Rey moors the speeder to a post at the back of a crowded landing strip and sets the restraining bolts so that no one can misappropriate it while they are away. She raises her hood, just in case her face has been broadcast on HoloNet and Ben looks concerned for a while before his face relaxes, and then ripples slightly right in front of her eyes. She can sense him using the Force, but she isn't sure what part of the textbooks he is channelling now.

'Alter image,' he confides, with a trace of smugness. 'I should appear to you as a small, pre-pubescent female Caphex.'

She squints, but she cannot see any trace of this projection, which will affect the minds of everyone who sees him. His skin should be pale grey, and he should be sporting huge triangular sideburns around a flattened nose and large black eyes, but it is likely that this trick, if it is working at all, is not working on her. 'You look like a well fed, large nosed, slightly awkward Chandrilan male to me, with the biggest hands I've ever seen.'

'Chandrila,' he repeats. 'Location – Core Worlds. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – Junari Point, Lake Andrasha, Sarini Island, Silver Sea. What makes you think I'm from Chandrila?'

'Just leave it,' she says, leading the way along a street surfaced with wood chippings and up the rough-hewn steps to the threshold of the first shop. It is only when she passes the doorway that she realises there is going to be a problem.

'Greetings to you,' the shopkeeper spreads his arms in welcome. He glances at Rey, his sideburns twitching as a friendly smile stretches his mouth and then he turns to Ben and his eyes glaze over slightly. 'And to your friend,' he adds, in a slightly less friendly manner.

'I don't think it's working,' Ben mutters from the corner of his mouth.

The shop is dark inside, lit by the murk of old fashioned tallow candles, with a couple of flickering glowpanels to supplement the meagre light. The darkness can't hide the scant amount of stock hanging on rails around the walls, or conceal the fraying edges of the shopkeeper's robes or the chipped paint on the counter. Rey feels so guilty she is tempted to leave, but Ben is already stepping forward.

'I'm in search of clothing,' he says in his usual baritone and the shopkeeper blinks rapidly, presumably attempting to reconcile this with the piping voice of a pre-pubescent female Caphex. 'Do you have anything that might be suitable?'

'Of course, of course,' the merchant moves towards the right-hand side of the counter and from underneath withdraws the kind of short, demure frock, complete with shoulder ruffles and integral flouncy hood which any self-respecting pre-pubescent female Caphex would be proud to own.

'That's – er – lovely,' flounders Ben.

Rey waves a hand. 'Maybe you have something else out back.'

'Maybe I have something else out back,' repeats the shopkeeper and then disappears into his storeroom.

'Idiot,' hisses Rey. 'Think of a better disguise.'

'How about this?' he hisses back, and there is that rippling effect around his face again. 'I should look like an older, male Reesarian, just taller than six feet, with long hair and a chest as broad as a tree trunk.'

She shoots him a look. 'Average looking Corellian male, needs a haircut.'

'Corellia,' he repeats. 'Location – Core Worlds. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – Gilded Descent Casino, Navigation Institute, Santhe Shipyards. Why am I from Corellia now?'

'Sssshhhh – he's coming back.'

The shopkeeper returns bearing what appear to be pink culottes, with matching stockings. 'What happened to your friend?' he asks, glancing up at the red skinned, dreadlocked alien with the piercing blue eyes.

'She had to leave,' Rey apologises. 'Can you find some clothes for him instead? Trousers, shirt and jacket, any colour but black.'

This time the shopkeeper whips out a tape measure and Ben's Force powers are put to the test as he is measured and then whisked away to a changing room to try on a new outfit. Rey counts through the credit chips in her backpack while he is gone, shaking her head. He returns looking satisfied and dumps a handful of smaller garments onto the counter while the shopkeeper rings up the total and put everything into a bag.

Rey waves a hand. 'Thank you for your payment, have a nice day.'

'Thank you for your payment, have a nice day,' repeats the man at the till.

Ben tries to butt in, 'But we haven't…'

Rey stands on his foot and he holds his tongue until they are outside the shop. 'That isn't the Jedi way,' he says reprovingly. 'That was stealing. We should go back in there and pay.'

'We don't have any credits. I can't use my account because if I do the Resistance will know where we are straightaway and all I have left is some small change that we're going to need to buy food.'

'But it's not right. He's poor.'

'So are we,' Rey snaps. 'Perhaps you should have thought of that before getting yourself captured, Prince of Alderaan.'

'Alderaan,' he repeats. 'Location: nowhere. It hasn't existed in what – more than thirty years? Chandrila and Corellia I can understand – I'm humanoid, Basic speaking, Core Worlds accent, but Alderaan? Why would you imagine I come from there?'

'And,' Rey continues, ignoring him. 'What gives you the right to lecture me about the Jedi way? Last time I looked you weren't a Jedi, you've spent half an hour looking at a book and I donated you a second-hand lightsaber. That doesn't make you a Jedi.'

The anger is back, rising within her no matter how hard she tries to force it down. She knows that it isn't him she is angry with, but herself, and that only seems to make the rage worse.

'Given that the choices seem to be Jedi or Sith, which would you rather I be?' he responds mildly. 'I thought you said I was heading for the dark side so I've been trying to take the other path but if you'd prefer me as a Sith I can do that instead.'

'Fine,' she says, pouring out all the credit chips she possesses and dropping them into his hands. 'There's a market. You do better.'

He doesn't reply but trots happily up the stairs of another of the long, low Caphex buildings, this one open to the elements and full of individual stalls, on which meat and produce are displayed on planks. It is noisy inside as the traders singsong their wares and Rey hangs around the outside, picking desultorily at unripe fruit, batting flies away from hanging birds. She catches the odd glimpse of Ben as he moves through the throng and every time she sees him he is smiling. Jealousy sparks in her chest that he is now sharing the gift he had only given her with random alien strangers in a market and she begins to follow him, meaning to shout at him, or pull him away, or something, but as soon as she gets close she realises how wrong that reaction would be.

He is conversing with these people not in Basic, but in their native language, in which he appears to be fluent, asking them questions and showing an interest in the answers. She backs off, conscious that she is overreacting and feeling ashamed of herself once again. At length he returns, laden with far more bags than she would have expected for the credits he had and he holds out his hand to show her the change, the smile still lingering in his eyes.

At the end of her acrimonious breakup with Finn, Rose Tico was fond of saying – when someone shows you who they are, believe them. As Rey watches Ben turn out of the market and into the nearest drinking establishment she realises he is showing her who he is. Intelligent, observant and good with people. How many awful things must have happened to him, she wonders, to turn the Ben Solo in front of her into the monster that was Kylo Ren? Her heart squeezes tight in her chest for him, although he is holding the door patiently, without a care in the world. How hard will it be for him to have to remember all that trauma? Does he even want to – is that why his memories are so slow to return? And if he doesn't remember, how much longer can she carry the secret on her own?

She follows him into another dimly lit interior, this one with small clusters of chairs and tables around a central, circular construction, on which a series of bottles, jars and cannisters are laid out. A fellow Reesarian behind the bar gives Ben a companionable nod as he chooses a table and pulls out her chair.

'What will you have?'

'Firewater. A large one.' Rey is clearly not going to live the rest of her life tee-total, because when he returns from the bar bearing a glass of the potent brew and another of water, she downs the alcohol in one.

Ben signals for another.

'Aren't you drinking?' The question is almost an accusation.

He shakes his head. 'I prefer not to be out of control.'

She snorts with the irony of that and then downs the second glass when his friend at the bar brings it over.

'I don't know you very well,' Ben starts quietly. 'But even I can tell that there's something the matter. Are you going to explain what it is?'

She nods at the barman for a refill, the burn down her throat fading too rapidly. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

He runs a hand through his hair. 'You seem… angry. Over the slightest of things and with no rational reason. I thought you were going to knock my head off this afternoon. You said you wouldn't sleep with me if I paid you, and yet you want 'company' so we're in a bar where I'm presumably supposed to make myself scarce while you find a clean looking Reesarian. That doesn't strike me as rational behaviour. And you rescued me, a complete stranger, from your friends out of the goodness of your heart for no very rational reason that I can see either. So yes, I do think there's something the matter. And I think I know what it is. I think it's grief. I think you lost someone close to you and you don't know how to deal with it.'

The barman delivers a bottle, and Ben whispers something to him before he leaves. Within a couple of seconds, the bar is filled with background music from one of the HoloNet channels, which effectively covers their conversation from the risk that anyone may overhear.

He leans forward and fixes her with eyes she has gazed into many times, the ones that always seem to be so full of pain. It is no different now, although the sadness he feels is for her. 'I don't know about grief,' he says. 'I mean, I may do, I may have lost my entire family and I just don't remember it but I do know that you can't just bottle up your feelings and expect them to go away. Hurt like that doesn't just disappear, it turns inwards, it'll eat you up if you let it.' He pushes the bottle towards her. 'So let it out. Tell me about him. Tell me about Ben.'

She nearly laughs, turns it into an awkward cough instead, because he is expecting her to admit that she mourns for him, when he is sitting right across the table and he hasn't gone anywhere. But this is not her Ben. As she stares into his eyes she realises that. This man is intelligent, observant, good with people and he is also kind, but he is not the tortured soul she loved. He is not the Ben she wanted to save. That man is gone.

'What does 'little starfighter' mean to you?' she blurts out, Lando's code name finally crossing her lips.

He frowns. 'Nothing. Should it?'

A fat boil of anguish rises within her and when it pops, the sorrow she has carried with her from Exegol comes oozing out, dripping from her mouth in words that leave a foul taste. 'Ben is dead. He died for me. I did something awful to him, but he came back to save me anyway. I was lost, and he found me, but he died doing it. He died because he loved me. I couldn't stop it happening, he was dead before I realised what was going on and I can't bring him back. I want to, but I don't know how.'

She finds her hands are over her face and there are tears pouring between her fingers. 'We had so little time, it wasn't fair. And now he's gone and there's something wrong with me. I've changed. I keep getting angry, and hurting people and I'm so alone.'

There are arms around her and now she is crying into a chest, a chest which is warm and alive and strong enough to support her and she wants to rest on it forever.

'You're not alone,' he says, and makes the whole thing worse.

She cries harder, sobbing in a way she can't remember doing before and while it is painful it is also cathartic, because she is lancing a boil which has been throbbing inside her for days.

'And there's nothing wrong with you either.' His chest rumbles beneath her ear. 'You've been through so much, give yourself time to heal.' A hand is stroking her back. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

'Kylo Ren,' calls a voice from across the room and Rey snaps upright in Ben's arms, because she knows that voice, and she knows it means they have been found.

Pushing tears from blurred eyes she seeks the speaker, pulling out of Ben's damp embrace with her hand dropping to her lightsaber. But there is no one there, and she realises that the voice is coming from HoloNet, which has been playing in the background all this time and has now been interrupted by the face of General Poe Dameron, projecting an emergency message to interrupt all channels.

'Ex-Supreme Leader of the First Order has escaped,' continues the recording. 'The Resistance has learned that the tyrant Kylo Ren, galactic war criminal and ally of Emperor Palpatine fled the battle of Exegol before Resistance forces could bring him to justice and is now at large. He is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Anyone knowing his location is advised not to engage him, but to contact the Resistance as soon as possible. There is a reward for information on his whereabouts.'

The picture shifts from Poe's face to a close up shot of Ben's, which appears to be an excerpt from a speech he had given at some point during his tenure as leader. A number appears below the holo, presumably contact details for anyone who wants to report a sighting. Then the emergency message switches off and the bland instrumental music continues as if nothing has happened.

'That's more than a passing resemblance,' says Ben, in a voice full of shock. 'I look just like him, although he has a scar and I don't. I can see why the Resistance were suspicious.'

But Rey isn't paying him much attention because she has noticed that the barman has stopped sanding down the counter and is staring across the room with a look of fixed intensity. She glances swiftly at Ben, and although he looks the same to her, she suspects that surprise has caused him to drop the image he has been projecting. Grabbing her bag, she strides to the bar and waves a hand.

'He's not the person they're looking for,' she says with authority. 'We were never here.'

'You were never here,' he agrees, and she drags Ben from the tavern as quickly as she can manage.


	9. Chapter 9

He won't let her drive. He says she's had too much to drink, and he is probably right, but that means she has to sit on the back of the speeder while he goes through a number of tedious pre-flight checks, which she suspects have come straight from the manual. When he does eventually take off his hands move over the controls in a careful manner, all his actions are considered and therefore he flies exceedingly slowly, with the craft doing no more than the recommended speed, its altitude and turning circle calibrated to be within operational parameters.

It is only when they are around an hour from home that he puts his foot down, and the speeder comes alive in his hands. She wraps her arms around his waist, puts her cheek to his back, closes her eyes and just leans on him, trusting him to do whatever he needs to. She can feel from the tilt of the vessel and the ferocity of the wind whipping through her hair that he is practising, testing himself and his abilities as he makes use of the Force to guide the craft as fast and as low as possible, as if he is some tyrannical leader chasing a girl across a desert.

By the time they are back at the camp it is dark, and Rey's eyelids feel like someone has weighted them down as she all but falls off the speeder.

Ben squints at her in the gloom. 'Can you walk or shall I carry you?'

'I can walk.' She demonstrates that she can stagger at least, while he collects the bags from the speeder panniers and dumps them in a heap in the equipment store.

He hands her a bottle of water while she is struggling with her belt and watches out of the corner of his eye while she drinks it as he seals the tent for the night.

'We need to leave,' she says, trying for clarity, although she feels like something has hit her in the chest, and the catch of her belt still refuses to come undone.

'We can discuss what to do in the morning. You're exhausted and you need to sleep.' He is across the room in a few strides, releasing her belt in a single flick and then kneeling to remove her boots one by one. It is done with dispassionate efficiency, and even in her addled state she recognises that this is not a seduction. 'Take off your clothes and go to bed.'

It soundly curiously like an order but she is too tired to resist and she begins unwinding the cloth around her chest and yanking at her sleeves. He is discarding his clothes over the other side of the room but she keeps her head down, her eyes lowered as she strips and then searches for her pyjamas, assuming that he is doing the same. He makes it to the bedroom before she does, and this time he takes the side closest to the wall, but when she clambers in she notices that something is different.

He has spread the blankets across both sides of the bed, so that the sleeping arrangements have become a double, rather than the two single areas she had laid out the night before and he raises the covers for her so that she can crawl in next to him. His arm is beneath her head before she knows it, and she rolls against his side, her head on his chest, ending the day as she began it. The sound of his breathing lulls her to sleep in seconds.

Rey wakes up in Ben's arms, cosy and comfortable and as she blinks she decides that this is a habit she doesn't want to break. His eyes are already open but he doesn't shuffle away and instead, continues stroking her upper arm in the same lazy way he appears to have been doing for a while. There is nothing sexual about this experience, she doesn't feel the urge to start seducing him and under her fingers his chest just feels like a body rather than an object of rampant desire. Rather, she is content to lean on him and he seems content to hold her.

Outside, the birds are singing with the dawn and the top of the tent is burnished with the gold of sunrise.

'Tell me about your childhood,' he asks without preamble.

All things considered, she would rather not, but it occurs to her that this is a story she can write however she prefers, now that she has the leisure to look back. Maybe it doesn't need to be that bad.

'My parents loved me very much,' she begins, feeling the truth of that statement. She was always loved, even in the times she felt most alone. 'But they got mixed up with something they couldn't control and to protect me, they left me somewhere they thought I'd be safe. They intended to come back, but they were killed and they never did. I grew up waiting for them. It wasn't much of a life, but at least I grew up. I was safe, even if I wasn't very happy. I learned to survive. If they hadn't done what they did, and left me on Jakku, I'd have been killed, or something much worse would have happened to me long before now.'

He doesn't appear able to help himself. 'Jakku. Location – Inner Rim, Western Reaches. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – '

'There aren't any, believe me,' she cuts in.

'But at least you know where you're from. You know your story, your history. I've lost all that. Rey,' he says, and he stops stroking her arm and grips it instead. 'I want to go back to Exegol.'

She is stone against his side. 'No. I never want to go back there. I can't. I won't.'

'I have to. That's where I was found and there has to be a reason why. There has to be a story and I want to know what it is.' His throat works as he swallows. 'I want to know why I look so much like him - Kylo Ren. That's why you really took me from the Resistance, isn't it? Not because you were rescuing me, but because you were trying to protect them. You think there's a good chance I'm him and I've just lost my memory. That's why we're hiding in the middle of nowhere – so you can kill me if I turn out to be Kylo Ren.'

Deliberately, she extends a finger and holds it high above his forehead where he can see it, and then she drops it down so that it lands just above his eye and runs a line over his face, across his neck and down his chest, the line of the scar that is no longer there. 'You're not him,' she says. 'He was a monster and he's dead.'

'Not according to the Resistance.' He extricates himself from her embrace, rolls on his side so that he can face her and the eyes that search hers are vulnerable, beseeching. 'I need to know, Rey. I need to know my story. I can't carry on not knowing who I am.'

'Let the past die,' she quotes. 'Kill it, if you have to.'

He sighs. 'I can't.'

Maybe it is better that he doesn't find out, she thinks. The revelation is going to hurt him more than he can possibly imagine. That this bright, compassionate man, who enjoys books and reading instructions could have murdered his father, overseen an empire which stole children from their parents for a life of forced servitude, stood by while countless millions were slaughtered indiscriminately with the planet killing weapon his side had made – this knowledge will crush him. He isn't her Ben, and perhaps she is cruel to expect him to be. Perhaps she should rejoice in the fact that he has lost his memories, because this allows him to be better than he was. He can start again.

She rolls onto her back, considers the curved vault of the roof. 'I suggest we escape from Ajan Kloss first, and then decide where we're going. How about that?'

He takes a breath and at first she thinks he is going to argue, but he pushes it back. 'One step at a time then. How do you suggest we escape?'

'Ajan Kloss is a moon, with two moons of its own, but there's little in the way of habitation this far out, that's why the Resistance chose it. Ajara is a gas giant and completely uninhabited. We need somewhere big enough that we can disappear but it'll have to have decent hyperspace links so we can escape in a hurry if we need to. You're the walking encyclopaedia, what planets are near here like that – and skip the points of interest, I'm not going sightseeing.'

She turns onto her side to face him, and rolls her eyes at his wounded look. 'Cademimu V is in this sector,' he answers after some thought. 'It has a population of ten billion or so, it's an ecumenopolis, heavily industrialised so it'll be easier to hide there, and it's on the Celanon Spur, which means there'll be a lot of traffic. The Republic used to use it as a munitions depot but more recently it's become a shadowport so we're more likely to find people there who are no longer so sympathetic to the Resistance. It has an interesting history actually, its most notable ruler was…'

She holds up a hand. 'I don't need a history lesson either. It sounds perfect, we'll go there. But we need a ship.'

'Steal one from the Resistance,' he says snippily. 'You're happy to steal everything else.'

'I stole clothes for you, but you can take them back if you want. Wander around naked for all I care, it wouldn't be the first time.'

He clears his throat. 'How do we get to Cademimu then, if we don't have a ship?'

'This moon survives on logging. It's slowly being deforested, which means that there must be a spaceport somewhere big enough to accommodate cargo ships, which will arrive on a regular basis. We can pick up a ship there, just something small with a hyperdrive and we can take that to Cademimu and change it for something else. But we are going to need a long term plan – where will we live? What will we do for credits? Someone needs to keep you in the style to which you've become accustomed.'

He flips onto his back and stares at the ceiling for a while, but she isn't sure what she's done to upset him. 'I'll just…go and have a look at the navcomp on the speeder then,' she offers eventually, sitting up and unfastening the tent.

He waits until she has opened the main door and has a foot outside onto the damp forest floor before he moves. 'I like waking up with you,' he says.

She feels a blush rise to her cheeks and she opens her mouth but nothing comes out. Perhaps now is not a good time for words. Instead, she fiddles with the speeder for a bit and when she comes back to the tent he has gone to the cenote and she doesn't follow.

Ajan Kloss's spaceport is a whole day's ride away on the speeder and Rey is keen to get started. It can only be luck that the Resistance have missed them so far – they were not expecting her to hide in the middle of the forest or they would have been out with sensor equipment before now, but it can be only a matter of time before they decide to search the rest of the moon. It is likely that their efforts have been centred on the port for the last couple of days, and her hope is that they will be getting careless. She may be able to slip through their surveillance if she hides well enough.

Ben returns to camp wearing his new clothes, which appear to be almost the same as his old clothes in fit and style, except that the trousers and tunic are dark grey and his shirt is a deep red. He has picked a floor length grey cloak which swishes pleasingly from his shoulders and these colours suit him so much better than the beige combination he had on before that, although she tries to disguise it, she can't help staring at him. There is no way that they are going to be able to hide with him walking around looking like that, all cloak and hair and brooding intensity. Something stirs low down in her belly and she feels her cheeks warm for the second time this morning.

He smooths the front of his tunic self consciously while she affects not to notice and busies herself with striking camp. The speeder's panniers are quickly full and the tent, sleeping equipment and other bags are slung over the back; Rey knows they will not be needed again but she is also aware that everything has a price, and she is currently short of funds. She has just packed the food they bought yesterday and filled drinking bottles with the last of the cenote water when she notices he has beaten her to the pilot's chair.

'It's alright,' he says. 'You relax, I'll drive.'

'Relax? You fly so slowly I'll fall asleep.'

He is halfway through his pointless checks again but he flings her a quick smile that is so roguish for a second that it reminds her of his father. 'Challenge accepted. If you fall asleep, I'll buy you dinner.'

She climbs on behind him and there is a shiver of something in her stomach as she loops her arms about his waist. He smells faintly of freshly sawn wood. She isn't a dinner sort of girl but she is quite tempted by the thought of eating with him somewhere special, while he wears this outfit and she is dressed to match. That thought sustains her while he takes off, but shortly afterwards she forgets about anything but the wind in her hair and the exhilaration of flight. Now that he has mastered his craft he is a good pilot, almost as good as she is herself and she enjoys the journey immensely, whipping through the forest with her knees gripping his thighs, her fingers laced around his stomach or tucked into his belt, mirroring his movements as they bank and turn.

The outskirts of Kloss Outpost flash past her in a blur of metal, long, low buildings much like the homely wooden versions found in the jungle, except that these are dirty and rusting and several are open to the skies. There is an acrid smell of burning in the air and the few other speeders on the main route into the trading post look like they have seen hard use. This is not a town which has money. Both moons are up before Rey taps Ben on the shoulder and indicates a salvage yard on the right hand side of the road, one of the only ones which still has its signs lit at this time of night and he turns into it and hits the landing sequence.

'Let me handle this.'

He nods, but his face ripples and she wonders what kind of disguise he has prepared this time. Rey stretches her legs, knowing from long experience that the price she achieves will be partly driven by the value of the items she is selling, and partly by the way she sells them. At some length, a bored looking Toydarian flutters from the shack in the centre of the yard and Ben has the sense to put his hood up and disappear behind her. The negotiations begin well, as the speeder goes for as much as two thirds its trade value, but Rey has to stop extolling the virtues of the camping gear she is also trying to shift when she notices the amount of time the junk dealer is spending trying to peer under Ben's cloak. She decides to cut her losses and gives away the rest of her equipment for a song, and she is about to request payment in untraceable credit chips before Ben steps in.

'One moment,' he says, in his distinctive voice and the Toydarian flinches in a way she finds disturbing. Ben holds out his hand for the dealer's transaction pad and enters a few commands on it, leaving his - also distinctive – fingerprints before he hands it back and Rey is passed the remainder of her payment to put in her bag.

She exits the scrapyard at a brisk walk, leaving the flying blue trader gawking in her direction. 'Mind tricks don't work on them,' she hisses, breaking into a trot. 'And he recognised your voice, and has your biometrics. He's probably calling the Resistance right now to claim the reward for finding Kylo Ren. Why couldn't you just stand there and keep quiet, for once?'

'I transferred the credits I owed for these clothes to the merchant in the forest. I'm not a thief.' He sounds unrepentant.

Rey threads through back streets, following the increasing press of people to the landing pads and the recreation area which will have sprung up around them. Emerging from a gap between two taverns she stops to assess the situation. The streets are crowded, and there is a strong smell of burning spice in the air, accompanied by the sound of several voices raised in a slurred song. It is not yet late, but already a fight has broken out at one of the entertainment venues further along the strip, two large, stocky bodies of indeterminate species brawling to the cheers of a watching crowd. This is not a safe place, and the ramshackle nature of the buildings, the general state of disrepair into which most appear to have fallen suggests that she will need to have her wits about her if her bagful of credits is going to make it out in one piece. If she shows weakness, she will become a target. Ben has felt the danger in the air, because his hand has disappeared inside his cloak and she suspects it is now holding his lightsaber.

She pulls up her own hood and points in the direction of the brightly lit docks on the far side of the strip, stepping out into the crowd and trying to draw as little attention as possible. There are a large number of fighters, transports and small cargo vessels standing on the various landing pads, but all are too visible to the patrons of the entertainment establishments to be easily stolen – she will need to move towards the outskirts of the docking area to find what she seeks. Abruptly, a hand lands on her shoulder and she spins, ready to attack whoever it is but Ben simply shakes his head and gestures backwards into the shadows.

She follows him to the back of a tumbledown building which reeks of sewage, on which an aged sign is flickering as its power cell disintegrates. Ben takes a few steps backwards and then launches himself towards the skies, executing a perfect somersault as he clears the roofline and lands on top of the hotel. She shakes her head, trying not to be impressed at the speed with which he is picking this up, and follows him.

'This isn't going to work. Did you see the guards?' He points out toward the landing area. 'Every ship has a member of the Resistance patrolling nearby, I saw the badges on their clothes. I think they're supposed to be hiding but if you look carefully enough you can see them.'

She peers out of the shadows, expanding her awareness through the Force at the same time, quietly, subtly, making sure that anyone who might be similarly gifted won't sense her search. 'You're right. Finn is here, I can feel him. He's a stormtrooper who defected,' she explains quickly. 'How are we going to get out? If that junk dealer mistook you for Ren it won't take long before every one of those guards is alerted and starts searching for us.'

'We could fight our way out.' He looks at her to gauge her reaction. 'They have blasters but they're no match for us. We could steal a ship easily if we wanted to.'

'And then we'd be chased by all the others. They'd catch us. We'd never make it to Cademimu.' She stares out at the vessels on the landing pads. 'We're trapped,' she says.


	10. Chapter 10

'Not necessarily,' he replies, looking up. 'There's a ship that the Resistance aren't guarding.'

It takes her a while to spot it because it is in a low orbit around Ajan Kloss and only really visible when its outline shows up against the second moon.

She struggles to make it out. 'That's a… freighter of some kind? A large one?'

'Not that I'm trying to be a walking encyclopaedia, but I think it's a _Whaladon_-class container ship, an old one. You can tell by the square sides. It can't land so the cargo will be ferried up there in smaller ships. I'd guess that's a logging vessel.'

'And you want to steal it?'

He looks affronted. 'That's not the Jedi way. Think about it – the Resistance are expecting us to take a small, fast craft big enough for two and make a break for the nearest hyperlane. They'll be looking for stolen ships, or ships that have been chartered recently with no cargo and an unusual flight path. But that's a very obvious way to escape. We're far better off trying to blend in. I think we should hitch a ride on the logging ship instead and let it take us wherever it's going. Then later, when we're sure we're not being followed, we can go back to Exegol.'

'So – you want us to stow away on it?'

'No. I want us to enlist. I think we should volunteer as crew. That way we have a cover story – if we stow away and get caught there will be a huge fuss, but two crew members on a ship who are exactly where they're supposed to be are far less obvious.'

Her mouth falls open for a second. 'Your plan is that you and I, the last Jedi and her idiot apprentice, should get jobs on a logging freighter?'

He bows for a second. 'Yes, Master Skywalker, that is exactly what I'm suggesting. Do you have any better ideas?'

'Alter image? Force illusion? Force cloak?' These are words cribbed from the pages of the Jedi texts although she has only the vaguest idea how they work.

'Not with that many people, and not where there are Toydarians. Teleport, fold space or Force travel would work, except that I'm trying to kick my dark side habit, Force stun would be good but again, too many people, Force flash won't last long enough. What have I missed?'

'I could just walk down there and ask Poe to let us go.'

'And I'm sure he would. You could fly away right now if you wanted to. But apparently, I'm the most wanted man in the galaxy, so if you want to stay with me then I'm afraid you're going to have to get a job.'

'Kylo Ren would never have come up with such a stupid idea,' she mutters mutinously.

'I'm not Kylo Ren,' he says.

An hour later Rey is standing in front of a startled looking officer, who has agreed, after a short spell of persuasion by the mystical power which connects all things, that he does have an immediate opening for two new crew members who need to be transported up to the orbiting freighter as soon as possible.

'Your qualifications are in order,' he repeats dully. 'I do not need to see a reference.'

'Excellent.' Ben is looking very pleased with himself. 'And I believe the signing on bonus is payable now.'

The man blinks. 'Signing on bonus? Salaries are due each period in arrears. There is no signing on bonus.'

Ben waves a hand. 'You will pay the signing on bonus to us now.'

'I will pay the signing on bonus to you now.'

'That's stealing,' Rey whispers, watching the credits fill up the brand new account she has recently opened in her false name.

'It's an advance,' Ben whispers back. 'I hate being poor.'

The officer blinks rapidly and looks down at the pad in his hands as if wondering what it is doing there. 'Then, all you need to do is sign your names on the employment contract and we're done.' He holds out the device to Ben, who has taken on a similarly confused look.

Without thinking too hard about it, Rey grabs the pad and enters her assumed name, something so random she is sure that no one will be able to connect it to her, and then hands it back.

'Welcome to the crew of the _Long Goodnight_ ah – Mr and Mrs Plutt. The droid will take you to the ship and show you your quarters.'

Rey stares straight ahead, focusing only on the dented looking protocol droid which totters in front of her out to the waiting shuttle. It is done now, and, although she is embarrassed she isn't sure how else she could have played it. She doesn't want to be parted from him, not again, and besides, they have spent the last few days in a tent together, this will surely not be too different. Ben shoulders the remnants of their luggage and she hears his footsteps behind her clanging up the ramp and into the ship.

The _Long Goodnight_ is the largest vessel she has ever seen, bigger even than Snoke's Dreadnaught, although it looks far less malign. There are no weapons ports, no throng of supporting fighters, no intimidating communications array or sinister bridge and the ship resembles nothing so much as a giant floating slab of metal with a hole in one end, into which their shuttle is directed. Ben says nothing as they are swallowed by the craft and the light from Ajan Kloss is extinguished by bulkheads and durasteel. The hangar bay holds a neat row of cargo transports, the last one containing a few trunks which are currently being unloaded by a couple of droids and a lot of automated machinery.

'When are we leaving?' she asks their guide.

'The _Long Goodnight_ has been in orbit for fourteen standard days and is due to depart at 0500 hours tomorrow morning, madam. The first stop will be Vuchelle, followed by Fedje, Ketaris, Agamar and then Cademimu.'

'And how many crew are on board?'

'The _Long Goodnight _has a crew complement of four, the captain, first officer, and two cargo handlers. I have not received instructions on the roles to which you have been appointed, but I will pass on this information as soon as I am informed. Here is your cabin now. Good night, madam. Sir.'

Rey is surprised that a ship with such a small crew even has married quarters, but given its age, perhaps it is not surprising that it was once used for other things. There isn't a lot of money in paper anymore, and wooden products are a niche market, which accounts for the lack of other live staff; droids are cheap, and it is probable that whoever owns this vessel bought it for a knock down price and runs it on a shoestring budget.

The room to which she is shown obviously hasn't been used in some time, the air has a stale quality from too much passage through oxygen scrubbers and although there is no dust, the furnishings show signs of wear. There is a large bed in the centre of the chamber, with more space around it than she was expecting, and plenty of storage units on the walls. A table and two chairs are set in one corner and there is a door which will lead to a fresher in the far wall.

Ben dumps their belongings on the floor, throws his cloak onto a chair and flops onto the mattress with a sigh. 'A proper bed,' he mutters to himself, with an expression of rapture on his face.

Rey explores the cupboards, finding a selection of uniforms – mostly blue boiler suits with zip up fastenings and the _Long Goodnight's _logo on the right hand side of the chest – and an array of safety equipment, including helmets and gloves. She grabs the bags off the floor and begins to unpack. Behind her, Ben has stopped luxuriating on the bed and tips the contents of his pack out onto a cabinet, sifting through it until he finds what he wants. Then he grabs a towel and heads for the fresher.

Rey isn't really sure what to do with herself. This doesn't feel like their camp in the woods, where she could disappear off to the cenote for some privacy or go for a walk if she wanted to. Here, she is hemmed in with metal walls, in a room meant for two and she finds herself wondering what he is expecting to happen next.

Then he strolls out of the fresher wearing only a towel and she ceases to think about anything else. There seems to be a lot more of him in the enclosed quarters, he appears taller and broader and he takes up more space, with his pale chest and hulking shoulders and the hair that is still slightly damp hanging in his eyes.

He says approvingly, 'Hot water.' And then he drops the towel and reaches out for the black sleeping trousers she recognises from this morning.

At first, she doesn't know where to look and then she finds that she does know where to look and she can't stop looking. He has his back to her but the smooth flesh of his naked backside is pointing in her direction and it is a luscious sight. His skin is slightly pink from the fresher, stretched in graceful lines across the muscles that bunch beneath, disappearing into a dark hollow where the tops of his powerful thighs meet. His sudden lack of clothing suggests he has a very good of idea of what he is expecting to happen next and she rips her gaze away, yanks a towel off the pile and disappears into the fresher.

The water is hot and it does nothing to cool the fire in her cheeks, the warmth she feels pooling in her belly. She knows that she is overreacting, because she has feelings for this man, she has kissed him and has spent the last few days waking up in his embrace, but the implications of this attraction suddenly seem overwhelming. She has to remind herself that he has lost his memories, he isn't the person she lost a few days ago but as she stands under the trickle of water she can't help but think that there is a route she has not yet tried to help him get those recollections back. She has not yet kissed him. It is possible that, given that her kiss was the last thing he felt before he died, if she kisses him again he may remember who he is. He is wandering around her bedroom naked, and it is probably a reasonable assumption that he is expecting her to kiss him, so she may as well stop prevaricating and get on with it.

She dries herself, lets her hair down and then wraps the towel around her chest and steps boldly into the bedroom. Ben has spread a cloth on the bed and is in the process of unpacking the food he bought in the market yesterday, some kind of exotic fruit caught between his teeth indicating he was too hungry to wait and has started without her.

He doesn't look up as he transfers his snack into one hand and gestures around at the various preserved meats, bread and fruit laid out in picnic form on the counterpane. 'I promised you dinner,' he mumbles, swallowing, and Rey drops her towel and walks calmly over to the cupboard where she has stashed her pyjamas.

There is a fit of coughing from the bed, so loud and so sudden she thinks he might be choking to death so she glances back over her shoulder to find him staring at her, mouth open to reveal half masticated fruit, his eyes enormous as he takes her in. His cheeks flush a vibrant red when he sees she has turned and he drops his gaze immediately to fiddle with the edge of the blanket and she pulls on her clothes as fast as she can.

'So – um – who is Mr Plutt?' he asks in a voice so nonchalant it has to be fake.

She takes a seat on the mattress next to him and crosses her legs. 'The person I was left with on Jakku. He raised me.'

He lifts his eyebrows, and the colour of his skin is only now returning to normal. 'A father figure then?'

'No. Definitely not.'

'Glad to hear it.' He attacks another piece of fruit. 'I thought tomorrow we could start on lightsaber training. I haven't even turned mine on yet. And there are some aspects of the sense and alter techniques I'd like your opinion on. I'm also interested in your views on the practical application of the more mystical aspects of the Jedi texts, like the 'world between worlds' concept.' He licks juice off his fingers. 'Do you think I should build my own lightsaber? That seems to come near the end of formal training.'

She isn't really interested and only replies because he is expecting it. 'You aren't at the end of your training, you've only just begun.'

'But I feel like I know most of the theory already, so I just need practice on how to apply everything in real life.'

'Make a new weapon then,' she replies. 'But no crossguards, and it can't be red.'

'Why would I want a red one?'

She goes back to the fresher to clean her teeth rather than answer and since she is in there so long, steeling herself for what comes next, he has packed away dinner and is already under the covers by the time she comes out. There is a hint of wariness in his expression as he watches her approach. She dims the lights and slides into bed beside him before she can lose her nerve. Her hand is a trifle jerky as it comes up to caress his face in the same place she touched him last time and when she leans in she is too rough and awkward. But then her lips are on his and his mouth is warm and alive and softly yielding under the pressure, her heart thumps wildly in her chest and she screws her other hand into a fist in her lap.

He lets it go on for no more than a moment before he moves away and she searches his eyes for the recognition which should be coming. He will need help through this, he will need support when he realises who he is, and what he has done.

He drops his eyes to her lap and opens his mouth. 'I don't want this,' he says.

She doesn't understand.

'I mean, this isn't what I had in mind.' He waves a hand at the battered cabin, the dented furniture. 'I didn't suggest that we came here because I wanted to get you into bed. You said we needed a long term plan, and I wanted you somewhere you had a proper roof over your head, and didn't have to worry about where the next meal was coming from.' He gestures vaguely at his mouth. 'And while this is flattering, and I'm very appreciative, really I am, last night you were crying in my arms because you're still in love with someone else. You aren't ready to move on yet.'

He is too busy rejecting her to remember anything. 'Who are you?' she whispers, because she is coming to the conclusion that she doesn't know.

He runs a hand through his hair. 'An idiot, obviously. An idiot trying to explain to a considerate, powerful, exceedingly beautiful woman in his bed, that he isn't going to kiss her back.' He takes the hand she still has frozen in mid-air and folds it into his own. 'When I touch you, if you ever let me near you again after this, I don't want you lying there imagining I'm someone else.'

She whips her fingers back, her face flushing, and she slashes her hand to plunge the room into darkness before rolling away to the extreme edge of the bed and knotting herself into the blankets.

'Ben never touched me.' She feels the need to set him straight. 'I kissed him but that was it.'

'He loved you enough to die for you but he was too chaste to want anything else? That's not a standard I'd like to be compared against.'

She lies in her marital bed, seething, although she knows he is trying to behave honourably and she should probably be grateful, but she doesn't know what to do next. Almost as long as she has known him she has believed that Ben Solo was inside him, trying to get out, and that dogged belief has sustained her through all the stupid things he has done so far. Does she still want to be with him if Ben is lost for good? She isn't sure.


	11. Chapter 11

She wakes in his arms again, because she doesn't appear to be able to avoid it. This time, she is still curled up in the corner of the bed and he is spooned around her back, his arm thrown possessively over her waist. He may be doing this on purpose, or it may be that he is drawn to her unconsciously in his sleep, but either way she has had enough. She slips off the edge of the mattress, exchanges her nightwear for a blue boiler suit and boots and leaves him sleeping.

At the end of the corridor there is a lift, and she has to walk past an entire floor of empty crew quarters to get to it, the door seals all showing a steady green to indicate that they are not in use. A map of the ship has been bolted to the wall, and like the ship itself, it has seen better days, as much of the script is blurred or covered in grease and it is with difficulty that she works out that the communal areas are located on the deck above, and consist of a canteen, recreation space, exercise facilities and a couple of other rooms of indeterminate purpose. The massive decks are below, and house the engines and mechanical storage and maintenance areas as well as the ventral repulsorlift suspension system which allows the cargo to be moved around easily.

The repulsorlift stinks of burnt bread, but it works and she follows the smell into the canteen. A blue suited woman stands with her back to Rey, fiddling with a bit of apparatus which appears to be malfunctioning, as gouts of black smoke are pouring out of it and rising towards the ceiling. She stops as soon as she hears the clang of footsteps and turns so quickly she nearly falls.

The woman is also sporting a blue boiler suit, but it is much more flattering than Rey's is on her. She is tiny, with a waist so small Rey's hands would probably meet around it, and hips that flare out dramatically into a sweeping curve. The fastenings of the suit are struggling to contain the woman's ample chest, which appears so top heavy given the rest of her slight frame Rey is nearly sure it is artificially enhanced. Long blonde hair is scraped back in an unflattering ponytail, but it cannot disguise the arresting beauty of her faintly pink face, all high cheekbones and pouting, full lips.

As soon as Rey catches her eye she looks down, and steps hesitantly across the room. 'Hi, I'm Candice.'

The handshake is brief, and Rey has the distinct impression that the other woman does not enjoy physical contact. 'I'm Rey. I'm new here.'

'Oh, I know, you joined up last night. I had a message from First Officer Dann to say that he'd taken on two new crewmates to help out, which is great, because we're really short handed.' She gestures at the smoking machine behind her. 'Would you like breakfast? The food synthesiser's been broken for ages but we stocked up on Ajan Kloss and there's plenty of fresh stuff available. That is, if you can work the toaster.'

'I'm not hungry.' Rey's stomach growls at her and she attempts to remember the last time she had a hot meal that wasn't either a ration pack or jungle forage. She smiles at Candice. 'I'm starving. Show me what you've got.'

There are eggs, smoked and preserved meats, beans and pulses, condiments by the dozen, as well as a range of baked goods and Rey decides she is going to cook all of it. She finds the necessary implements and gets to work while Candice brews caf and looks on longingly.

'Do you want some?' she asks, piling half on a plate and offering the rest to her co-worker.

Candice shakes her head. 'I can only digest polystarch and blended nutrients.'

'How come?' The food is delicious. Rey thinks she may be eating some kind of bacon and she wonders why she has spent so long existing on plants when there is such a wonderful alternative in the universe.

'I'm a – well, you must know what I am. No? Really?'

Rey continues to shake her head. 'I've led a sheltered life.'

'It's how I was bred. Eating isn't attractive so I was genetically altered to make having proper meals impossible. I'm a Zeltron carfarel, or mostly Zeltron anyway, I'm not sure what the other part is, but it's why I'm not fully red. I was bred in Hutt space and I served them and their allies for years before I ran away. Everyone on this ship is running away from something.'

Rey looks closely at the woman across the table, at the way her boiler suit is fastened up to the neck, the enormous, unflattering goggles she has perched on her head, the lack of makeup or any kind of ornamentation, the way she rarely makes eye contact. 'Running away sounds like a very brave thing to do,' she says.

The woman brightens slightly and pulls out a pad. 'I have your rosters here. You've been put on droid maintenance, and it's a double shift, I'm afraid. Dann says you have to start earning your signing on bonus, whatever that is. I'm a cargo handler so I'll be down in the hangars all day, and you probably won't see D'Workan either, because he's busy cataloguing the new stock at the moment. Your husband is on engine repair. Have you been married long?'

Rey shakes her head. 'This is our first trip together.'

Candice bends closer. 'Are you running away?'

'No. But my friends don't exactly approve of him. We're keeping a low profile.'

'Oh.' Candice's eyes jump to something over Rey's shoulder, but from the familiar sound of heavy boots Rey can already tell who it is. She swings round to make an introduction, but Candice is already on her feet, her hand on her hip, her chest thrust out and she seems to be chewing something. 'Hi,' she starts. 'My name's Candy, what's yours, sugar?' She catches herself then and drops into her chair opposite Rey, her face a flame red. 'Sorry,' she whispers. 'It's genetic.'

Ben clumps forward, and Rey shifts seats so he won't take the one next to her, plonking herself next to Candice instead. 'Hello Candy,' he says, but he gives the woman no more than a cursory look, and his attention fixes on Rey.

'Candice,' she corrects. 'This is my husband.'

Candice squints at him and Rey sees that Ben's face is rippling around the edges again as he projects the image he has chosen into the other woman's mind. She leans over towards Rey. 'I see why your friends don't approve. I've never met anyone before who's married a Crolute.'

Rey freezes and attempts to see what is sitting in front of her, but he still looks like Ben, albeit a Ben in a blue boiler suit with too much chest on show. 'Looks like I did,' she grates, and then leans back behind Candice's back and mouths one word at him silently – 'Idiot.'

She understands exactly what he's done. Knowing the false name she has given and knowing her homeworld he has conducted some research and come up with a disguise as authentic as possible, but she isn't sure if he's ever seen a Crolute in the flesh before. Candice probably sees a walking ball of fat, which is what the species looks like when they are out their natural habitat, to say nothing of the voice, or the unpleasant way the skin smells, especially when they are hot.

'This is my husband,' she repeats. 'Lunkas Plutt. He's quite handsome, but only underwater.'

Ben frowns at her.

Candice is still looking dubious. 'I've met Crolutes before. They need a certain sort of attention. All Crolutes are male and they can only mate with Gilliands from Crul, no one else.' She turns to Rey. 'How does it work between you? When you're in private?' She catches Rey's expression and flushes again. 'Sorry, force of habit.'

'That's alright,' Rey gives a reassuring nod, but she turns a laser sharp stare on Ben. 'We're still working out that part ourselves.'

He pushes away from the table and goes to explore the rest of the kitchen, ending up in front of the still smoking toaster. 'What did you do to this?'

'I made breakfast already.' Rey goes back to her meal and ignores him. 'You can have what's left.'

The sounds of cupboards opening and closing continues for a while, followed by the sound of a fingernail tapping on a datapad and then some banging and a bit of low muttering before he finishes whatever he's doing. 'Fixed it. You had the settings turned up too high and someone had reinstalled the crumb tray incorrectly. It should be fine now.'

Candice rises and sways towards him. 'You're a marvel, Lunk. Can I call you Lunk? Or would you prefer Ass?'

Rey clears her throat and Candice throws her a mortified glance. 'Zeltrons are extremely sensitive to pheromones, and he's giving off a lot of pheromones, for a Crolute,' she gabbles, before running from the room.

'What was that about?'

'She's a Zeltron carfarel. Don't tell me what it is, just look it up in your head, I can work it out for myself. She serviced the Hutts until she ran away. I don't think she can help how she behaves. I suggest you leave her alone.'

'I have no intention of doing anything else.' He pulls the plate of extra food towards him. 'Are we going to train this morning?'

She pushes the datapad across the table. 'No. I'm on droid maintenance and you're scheduled for engine repair. It's a double shift. You'll probably be asleep by the time I get home.'

He shakes his head. 'I'll wait up. I missed you this morning.'

She snorts in a manner that is designed to be unattractive, and storms out of the canteen, heading for droid maintenance two decks below. The simmering anger has resurfaced and this time, it doesn't seem to want to go away. Her heels pound the corridors, her fingers punch buttons and she is unnecessarily rough with the equipment she is cannibalising, dismantling broken BB units for parts and remaking others until she has workable droids. The task is easy, and familiar, and it should be soothing but Ben haunts the boundaries of her thoughts and she finds it hard to let him go.

She has completed seventeen units and sent them to patrol the ship in search of maintenance tasks before a shipwide alert whines through the disused speakers, garbled and indistinct.

'All crew report to the bridge.' She thinks the voice may be that of First Officer Dann, but the quality of the sound is too poor to be certain.

The bridge is on the top deck, and Rey is the last to arrive. There are three other blue garbed crew members, of whom only one is unfamiliar, a non-descript humanoid male who has no distinguishing features to signal his homeworld, who is hanging around at the back of the group, shifting from foot to foot and giving every indication of wanting to be somewhere else. This must be D'Workan. Rey's instinct tells her not to trust this man, before he has even opened his mouth.

The first officer is familiar to her from their interaction the previous night, his grey uniform even more rumpled in daylight and the bags under his eyes enormous. Looking at him in the artificial light of the ship it is clear to Rey that he has some kind of addiction, because he looks permanently sweaty and there is a jittery quality to the way he moves his hands that doesn't seem healthy. She is not surprised that Ben managed to prevail upon him to employ them so easily – his brain was probably already mush before the mind trick.

The captain of the _Long Goodnight_ is an older man who appears completely out of place amongst the crew, all of whom appear to have problems in one way or another. His bearing is upright, poised and he stands with his hands clasped behind his back; she suspects he has had at least some involvement with the military. He has iron-grey hair, swept back from his forehead over a face which is conventionally handsome, if crinkled around the edges. Candice suggested that everyone on board was running from something, but Rey cannot divine what might have caused the captain to flee.

'Welcome to the team, Mrs Plutt,' the captain booms, having noticed her entrance and he makes a beckoning motion for her to join them. 'I was just congratulating your husband on his excellent progress with the engines. Would you like to explain to everyone what you have accomplished, Lunkas?'

Rey catches the tiny wince as the captain says Ben's new name and she is tempted to smile before he eyeballs her. 'I simply improved the efficiency of the engines by thirty percent. It was nothing really.'

The captain claps him on the back. 'What Lunkas here is too humble to say, is that he has repaired the malfunctioning sub-light drive, which, as my regular crew will know, has been preventing us from attaining maximum speed for at least a year. This means that our trip can be completed much more quickly than expected, and we will all receive an extra bonus from the Nixata Shipping Line. Well done, that man.'

There is some very muted clapping from the three established members of the team, and such is their lack of interest that Rey suspects this kind of employee recognition is quite common on board.

'I expect great things of you, Mr Plutt. Now – on to the hyperdrive.'

The crew begins to disperse but Ben catches Rey's eye. 'Actually, Captain, I was wondering if I could talk to you about the shift rosters? I appear to have been put on a double rotation, and, given the success I've already had with the engines this morning, I was wondering if I might spend the afternoon helping my wife in droid maintenance?'

'Of course, of course. Duty should never come between a man and his wife,' the older man is clearly uninterested in the inner workings of shift rotations and waves a hand, as his attention turns back to the bridge controls.

Rey moves away, but Ben is trotting after her. 'It was a simple misfire in the priming circuit,' he confides. 'Quite apparent from the wiring diagram I found in the manual.'

'And you also fixed the toaster. Well done.'

His voice drops. 'I fetched the lightsabers from the cabin. I thought we could spend the rest of the day training.'

'I don't want to see you at the moment,' she whispers back. 'Don't you know when you're being ignored?'

'I know I'm being ignored,' he says. 'But I'm ignoring it.'

He clears a space in the midst of the hangar of droid parts, switches on his saber and approximates the third form so badly it looks like he has never held a lightsaber before. Rey flicks on her own blade and attempts to correct his errors but after ten minutes of trying he is still making the same mistakes and her patience, already thin, has snapped.

'Are you even trying? You don't look like you're trying.'

'I'm trying, but you don't know what you're doing.'

'I'm a Jedi,' she snaps. 'And you did better with the stick.'

He takes a breath, shoots her an assessing glance. 'If you were a better Jedi, maybe your Ben wouldn't be dead.'

His words are unforgiveable and her reaction instantaneous. She leaps to the attack and he is forced to fight for his life, because she isn't stopping until she has revenge. She chases him up and down the hangar, whirling off walls, leaping across piles of parts, duelling hand to hand on the floor. The rage blows a whirlwind inside her, a turning circle of anger that won't let go until she is sweaty and gasping, and he has sustained a number of minor injuries which are beginning to slow him down.

He puts up a hand and she pulls to a halt, wiping her forehead on her arm. 'Feeling better?' he asks. 'We can carry on if not.'

Her stance sags as she understands. 'You were trying to provoke me.'

'You were angry,' he nods. 'Your shoulders tighten up and you walk with this sort of hunch when you're annoyed with me. I thought it would be a good idea to let it out. Anger like that will eat you up if you let it. Are we done?'

'We're done,' she agrees, too exhausted to argue, but before she can switch off her saber there is another call over the shipwide tannoy.

'All crew report to the bridge.'

Rey turns, and out of the corner of her eye she sees a figure in a blue boiler suit whisk through the doorway and into the corridor, a figure with no distinguishing features who has been watching them fight for an indeterminate length of time. By the time she makes it into the hallway he is gone.

For the second time Rey assembles with the rest of the crew on the bridge, but this time the atmosphere is less celebratory.

The captain's face is dark and he spits out his words with disgust. 'I have been forced to ask you all to present yourselves here by this rabble –' he points at a ship on the viewscreen behind him. 'Who have the audacity to tell me what to do.'

Ben says, 'A YT-1300 light freighter? Who's on board?'

Rey surges towards the screen, her reservoir of fury seemingly not exhausted by the hours she has spent pouring it out on Ben. The world around her is red and jagged, and the fire in her heart rages like a furnace; her fingers itch with the urge to violence. She doesn't really see the ship through the viewscreen, she doesn't care who might be on board, she sees a threat, and her reaction is immediate and all-encompassing.

'Blow that piece of junk out of the sky,' she yells.


	12. Chapter 12

Everyone stares at her.

Ben says patiently, 'Excellent suggestion, dearest, but we don't have any weapons and that looks like a Resistance ship. They've just won a great victory against the Sith, I don't think we should upset them by blasting them now.'

The captain folds his arms. 'A great victory? I don't think I'd describe that as a great victory, Plutt. More like a lucky strike. I'm with your wife. I think we should blast them, jumped up, pathetic rebel scum.'

Rey clenches her firsts, directs her entreaty at Ben. 'We have to destroy that ship right now. You know what will happen if we don't. I won't let them take you.'

'Ah,' Candice clicks her fingers. 'Your friends are the Resistance. They're the ones who don't approve of your marriage.'

'That's right,' Ben jumps in quickly. 'They don't like me, they never have. Have they said what they want?'

First Officer Dann pushes some buttons and a recording of Poe's face fills the screen. 'General Dameron hailing the logging vessel _Long Goodnight_ – please respond. I'm undertaking a routine search for the escaped war criminal Kylo Ren, recently believed to be on Ajan Kloss. Can you confirm your ship's crew complement please and assemble the crew on the bridge for visual verification? Dameron out.'

'How dare they order me around on my own ship!' The captain's face is puce. 'I saw the first broadcast on this. I wouldn't give them Kylo Ren even if I had him, he was in league with Palpatine – now there was a leader worth the name. The Resistance can go pound sand.'

Now everyone is looking at the captain.

'We don't have any weapons though,' he adds quickly. 'So we'll have to do as they ask, or they might start looking at us a bit more carefully. It's possible that logs aren't all we're carrying. Crew – attention.'

Rey slips towards the back of the little group and places herself next to Ben. The expression on his face suggests he is concentrating hard, and she too focuses on using the Force to change her appearance, although her grasp of the alter image technique he has been using is purely theoretical. She opts for the female natives of Crul, assuming the bulbous, blobby shape of a Galliard to match the form that Ben has chosen. His hand creeps down to find hers and grips it tightly.

'Open,' orders the captain, and Poe's familiar face flashes up on screen. 'This is Captain Nyssyen Hi'Ito of the logging vessel _Long Goodnight_. My crew complement is six and as per your orders, all my crew are here and accounted for. Goodbye. Close,' he says.

Poe is on screen for no more than a couple of seconds, and Rey doesn't sense Finn anywhere in the area. Perhaps her subterfuge has been successful. Then the cargo ship is being hailed again.

'General Dameron to the _Long Goodnight_. We've run a life form scan which concurs with your reported numbers – do you have any shielding technology on board which might be used to conceal stowaways? Any smugglers compartments, that sort of thing?'

'This is a reputable container vessel,' thunders the captain. 'There's nothing for you here. Close.'

On screen, Rey watches the Falcon bank and fly away and she releases a breath she didn't know she was holding. She lets the illusion drop before anyone notices she is maintaining it and then stumbles back to the cabin, still clutching at Ben's hand. She is drowning and there is nothing else to hold on to. She has been angry for an entire day and the feeling seems to have become comfortable inside her, no matter how hard she tries, she can't switch it off and she despises herself for this weakness. She knows that, had she had weapons readily available, she would have pulled the trigger and attempted to blast the Falcon, ignoring the fact that her friends were on board. The only thing that saved them was luck. She doesn't want to lose Ben, but her response to a relatively mild threat to his life was completely over the top; she had jumped straight to murderous violence, having learnt nothing from her previous attempt to choke Poe. That was not the reaction of Rey Skywalker, and she is sure now that she isn't worthy of the name. She is Rey Palpatine to her core.

He senses how much she needs him, because he doesn't let go of her hand and he waits patiently while she slips into the fresher to change. He pulls back the covers and puts his arm out. She doesn't hesitate to accept the invitation, curling against his side as he comforts her with his embrace. It takes her a long time to fall asleep.

When she wakes the bed is cold, and Ben is gone, along with one of the blue boiler suits from the cupboard. The fresher has been used and it is nearly time for her shift to start, not that she cares about such things. She tracks him to the canteen on the floor above, following a trail of breathy giggles and the resonant sound of his voice.

He is standing next to Candice at the dining table, which is covered in a swirl of sauce bottles, pointing something out with one hand. The other woman doesn't appear to be attempting to seduce him, which makes a pleasant change, but she is smiling up at him in a way that indicates genuine pleasure, as if she is enjoying his company.

'Morning dearest,' Rey begins. 'I missed you this morning.'

Ben raises his eyebrows at the endearment. 'Candice and I were just planning out her sightseeing tour of the galaxy, once she's saved up enough money from this job to take some time off.'

'He made a scale map out of condiments,' she says. 'Isn't he clever? And he's been telling me all the names of the planets and what the atmosphere is like. It's fascinating.'

'Candice particularly asked me to list all the points of interest on each planet. It's so nice to have an appreciative audience for once.' He waves over at the work surface. 'I made you breakfast. I was going to bring it down but I got distracted.'

The boiler suited courtesan leans forward for a woman to woman whisper. 'I'm starting to understand what you see in him. He's quite sweet if you ignore what he looks like. No offence, Lunk.'

'None taken.'

Rey rolls her eyes and marches over to make a start on her breakfast.

Candice says, 'We'll be entering Vuchelle space pretty soon. Dann wants you to focus on the droids, Rey – he thinks you're behind schedule - so Lunk and D'Workan and I will organise the cargo and make the delivery. We'll be back this evening. You won't notice we're gone.'

'I will,' she mutters, and Ben gives her a curious look. 'I mean, I don't think you should leave the ship, husband. The Resistance may be back at any moment. You're not safe without me.'

'I can protect myself.'

For someone who can only remember switching on a lightsaber for the first time yesterday, his confidence is irritating, and Rey feels the annoyance inside her rising again. 'You're not going, and that's final.'

He darts a glance at Candice. 'Calm down, Rey. We dealt with this yesterday.'

She is about to explode again when the ship's tannoy crackles into life. 'All crew report to the bridge.'

Rey throws her fork back onto her plate, catching a shared look between Ben and his co-worker, which just makes her more irate, and she storms off to the bridge.

The captain's face mirrors her mood, drawn into sharp lines of anger. 'They're back,' he says, and punches the viewscreen.

The _Millennium_ _Falcon_ fills Rey's vision, but she is horrified to see that it isn't alone. It looks like Poe has mobilised all of the ally ships still remaining on Ajan Kloss. Hundreds of them fill the screen, lined up into untidy ranks behind the Resistance flagship. Rey flings a glance at Ben, to find that his face is pale – he too knows what this must mean.

'General Dameron to the _Long Goodnight_. Hey guys – it looks like we've got a bit of a problem. I have concrete intelligence that you have two lightsaber users on your ship, and I don't remember you mentioning that yesterday. Now, are you going to hand them over, or am I going to have to come down there and make you?'

The channel is audio only, so Poe cannot see the reaction on board the cargo ship as the room erupts into chaos.

'How dare they?' yells the captain. 'What gives them the right?'

'Will they board us? I don't want them to board us, I won't be able to cope with so many pheromones,' worries Candice.

Rey simply turns in the direction of D'Workan and raises her hand into a Force choke position. Ben catches her arm, shaking his head. 'There's no time for that.'

She pulls away from him, still intent on reaching the traitor who has clearly leaked this information, and the man backs away from her expression.

First Officer Dann turns a perplexed face on Ben. 'Who are you? I've never seen you before in my life.'

Ben sighs and there is a ripple as the mask drops and a collective intake of breath sounds from the other members of the crew.

'You're him, you're the Supreme Leader. Palpatine's ally is on my ship.' The captain's voice holds a note of awe.

'I can't be captured by the Resistance,' Ben states, fixing the other man with a direct stare. 'I need to escape. I have a plan, but I need your help. Will you help me fight the rebels, Captain Hi'Ito?'

The older man inclines his head, but the slow movement cannot contain his enthusiasm. 'It would be my honour.'

'What plan?' Rey asks.

Ben takes a seat at the bridge controls and begins tapping commands. 'You won't like it. I thought it very likely that the Resistance would come back, especially after we were spied on in the hangar bay yesterday. So after you went to sleep I stayed up and went through the operating handbook for this ship. It has no weapons, but it has very good shields, and it also has a massive ventral repulsorlift suspension system. I connected two together and because this ship is so large it creates enough mass to make a fully functioning repulsorshield – as soon as those Resistance ships fly towards us they'll be pushed away.'

'I haven't seen a repulsorshield since the first Death Star,' the captain breathes.

'That's where I got the idea,' Ben replies while he works. 'I seem to have the basic schematics in my head.'

'It won't work. When they realise they can't get close enough to board us, they'll just fire on us instead.'

Ben flicks Rey a glance. 'Shields. Very good shields, remember. And they'll be firing from quite a distance away.'

'And what are we going to do in the meantime – get on a shuttle and fly out of the hangar bay? They'll track us, and the shuttles don't have hyperdrive. The minute we leave, the Resistance will abandon their attack on the _Long Goodnight_ and come after us instead.'

'I'm not leaving, not yet anyway. I just need to buy some time.' Ben's hands fly over the comms circuits now, preparing to open a channel and then he turns and gives her a single look, just one single glance from those deep brown eyes and they are so full of pain she thinks she sees the old Ben looking out at her.

Then he presses a button and the comms line is open. 'Supreme Leader Kylo Ren to the First Order. This is Supreme Leader Kylo Ren calling the First Order.'

'No!' Rey yells and surges towards the panel to switch the line closed.

He is too quick for her. She is caught in a full body freeze and while she is struggling to break out of it, he continues to speak. 'I require urgent assistance. I have escaped Exegol and I am located in Vuchelle space on board the freighter _Long Goodnight_. My vessel is currently under attack from the Resistance. I require urgent military assistance. Standby for visual and voice print identification.' He toggles another button and the screen in front of him lights up so that his face is projected across the stars. Then he switches the panel off and his shoulders sag.

'What have you done?' Rey whispers.

'Everyone thinks I'm him anyway. I may as well get some benefit out of it,' he responds, his voice so low that no one else can hear.

'There's no benefit to joining the dark side.'

'That's not what I'm doing. We're trapped, or I'm trapped anyway. You can go back to the Resistance any time you want. But I need to get back to Exegol as quickly as possible and you made it quite clear you weren't willing to go with me, so I'm going alone. I can pretend to be this Ren person for long enough to get somewhere safe, and then take a ship back to where I was found so I can work out who I really am. You said the First Order is in hiding, and its leadership has been decimated – I bet my life they'll welcome me with open arms.'

'You're leaving me. You're leaving me behind.' She feels the outliers of a storm in her heart, but this one is made of ice, this one freezes as it turns, hardening her resolve.

His face folds in on itself. 'It's hurting you to be with me. Every day you get more angry, more volatile. Yesterday you tried to fire on your friends. You're losing control and it's because you're with me. I remind you too much of him. It's hard to watch you falling apart, knowing I'm to blame. For your own good, you need to leave.'

'You're trying to save me again, aren't you? You're going to do something exceedingly dangerous, without any form of consultation at all, without asking me what I want, because you think it's for my own good.'

He is frowning now, tilting his head as if he has caught something in her words and doesn't quite understand.

'Not again,' she snarls. 'I won't let you do this to me again.' She moulds the rage into determination, channels it into the Force and before he can stop her, she gestures, and he is flung across the room, landing heavily by the repulsorlifts. Then she steps up to the console and re-opens the channel.

'Empress Palpatine calling the First Order. This is Rey, granddaughter of Palpatine calling the First Order. I have escaped Exegol and I am located in Vuchelle space on board the freighter _Long Goodnight_. My vessel is currently under attack from the Resistance. I require urgent military assistance. Standby for genetic identification.' She rips a line across her palm with a slash from the Force, presses it against the organic sampler and sends the proof of her identity into space. Then she turns to the rest of the crew.

Everyone stares at her.


	13. Chapter 13

'Rey? You're a Palpatine?' Ben strides back across the room towards her. 'But that's…ridiculous. Unbelievable. You can't just make up something like that because you don't agree with what I'm doing.'

'Mrs Plutt? You're a Palpatine?' the captain sounds equally disbelieving.

Rey folds her arms, and it is the captain she chooses to address. 'I am. My grandfather told me himself. My parents ran from him and he sent an assassin to track them down. When they wouldn't give me up, he had them murdered. But you don't have to take my word for it, I'm sure the First Order will have my family's genetic profile on record, the Resistance will as well by now. Either side can confirm I'm telling the truth. And there's always this.' She concentrates on how angry she is with Ben, how much she resents the fact that he has come up with this ridiculous plan without consulting her first – her rage is always simmering below the surface these days, it doesn't take much for it to boil again. Lightning spurts out of her fingers and is extinguished just as quickly.

Captain Hi'Ito says, 'You are a Palpatine,' and his tone is now awed respect.

'You said you were a Skywalker. Why would you lie?' Ben demands, squaring off to her in front of the console. His face is dark, and Rey sees that she is not the only one in the room who is angry. This isn't going the way he expected it to.

'I took the name as my own. I wanted to belong.' She shrugs. 'Now I'm not so sure I do.'

He purses his lips. 'What other secrets are you keeping from me?'

'You have a bigger problem. You need to be Kylo Ren – how do you intend to pull that off?'

He turns to the captain. 'My wife has a point. I need to go and change into something more appropriate before the First Order arrive. Could you ensure the shield programme is running as planned and then contact the Resistance and tell them to – what was it? Pound sand.'

The captain faces Rey and salutes smartly – despite Ben giving the orders, it is clear where his loyalties lie. 'Yes, sir.' Then he turns back to his crew and clears his throat. 'Dann, open a channel... Rebel scum…' he begins.

Rey doesn't hear the rest before Ben is marching from the room and she needs to follow him. She doesn't want him exploring the ship's databanks for information on Kylo Ren on his own, in case the secret of his birth identity is also hidden there. If that revelation is coming she wants to be able to tell him who he is herself. He waits until they are in the lift alone before rounding on her.

'Who are you? Rey Palpatine? Rey Skywalker? Rey someone else entirely if it suits whatever story you're trying to sell? I've trusted you from the moment we met, but I don't really know you at all. You lecture me about not using the dark side when you're the granddaughter of the Emperor himself – you can shoot lightning from your fingertips, and I don't remember seeing that in the Jedi texts.' He seems more bemused than angry now, which she doesn't think is a good sign.

'I'm a Jedi,' she grits out. 'And my family name shouldn't matter, it's who I choose to be that counts.'

'It does matter though, doesn't it – or you wouldn't have hidden behind 'Skywalker'. I think you're more like your grandfather than you want to admit. You're angry, all the time, and not just with me, with anyone who crosses you. You jump to extremes of violence and lose control over the smallest things. You seem horribly conflicted – one minute we're in the hangar bay and you're trying to kill me, and the next you're threatening to kill your friends to save my life. And then sometimes I think we have a connection, like when we're in bed, and we're talking, and then you throw me across the room and tell me you've been lying to me for days and I realise I don't know you at all. I think… Rey, I think I'm done.' The worst part is that he doesn't even sound annoyed about it, just exhausted.

Her ire raises again, although she tries to dampen it down. 'Done? You're not done. You won't ever be done with me.'

He raises his hands, and his tone is resigned. 'Don't start again, please. I need to go and prepare to become someone I'm not, so if you could give me some time alone, I'd appreciate it.'

She takes a breath to begin ranting, and her hand falls to her lightsaber. He sees the movement, and his shoulders sag. 'You need me,' she grates, although her jaw is aching from the effort of holding in the rage. 'You need me to tell you what Kylo Ren was like.'

The lift has come to a halt and he makes for the door, brushing aside her offer.

'He had an awful temper,' she rushes out, before he can leave. 'He always thought he was right. He shouted a lot. He didn't seem to have any friends and he was horrible to everyone who loved him.'

Ben looks her steadily for a minute. 'He sounds exactly like you,' he says.

He is wrong, Rey thinks, clearing the storage units in their cabin and stuffing her belongings back into her pack. She is nothing like Kylo Ren. She doesn't wear black for a start. Her lightsaber isn't red. She has never been troubled by the dark side – apart from that time she thought she'd killed Chewbacca, and then when she nearly strangled Poe, and just now, when she'd wanted to destroy the Falcon. Those were just mistakes, they didn't mean she'd turned away from the light. But something in his words strikes a chord. She hasn't felt right in a long time now, not since she left Exegol. Something inside her changed when Ben died, and she doesn't seem to be able to change it back. Maybe not being reminded of him every day would help. Maybe not being around this man who appears to be him, and yet is so different, maybe that would help her heal. Maybe he has a point.

She goes back to the bridge after an hour or so, but Ben is not there. Captain Hi'Ito and First Officer Dann are manning the controls, and the Resistance ships are now much further away than they were. Periodically, a volley of cannon fire shoots from one of the rebel ships towards the _Long Goodnight_, but it cannot penetrate the shields and the shots simply bounce off into sparks. Candice gives Rey a sidelong glance when she enters the room, and the other woman then disappears off elsewhere. Rey feels disappointment from her, the result of the subterfuge Rey has had to employ, but she is unrepentant. Candice is not her friend, she is simply a co-worker and a fleeting one at that. D'Workan has been lashed to a chair with restraints, and his eyes are full of resentment, although Rey has still to hear him speak.

It is some time before the standoff is lifted. With a sudden ping of the proximity alert, a Star Destroyer materialises out of hyperspace directly over the cargo ship, its blunt nose thrust towards the rebel fleet in obvious challenge. While Rey watches, more and more ships appear, until there are nearly forty vessels forming a protective phalanx with the container craft set firmly in the middle. In response, warning lights flash on the rebel ships and the panel in front of First Officer Dann lights up with information on hostile armaments and targeted weapons systems.

There is going to be a war. Ben has brought war to the Resistance, and closed forever any chance they ever had of going back. The First Order comms the _Long Goodnight_, and as if he knew it was going to happen, the lift doors open and Ben strides onto the bridge. Rey catches her breath at the sight of him. He hasn't been able to find an exact match for the clothes he used to wear – they are now hidden in her pack – but he has come close. He has discovered a pair of snugly fitting black trousers in an empty cabin somewhere, and teamed those up with a black top and a short black jacket. There is a blaster lashed to his thigh and a series of leather straps stretching down the left side of his chest secures his lightsaber to his hip. He even appears to be walking differently, tension in his shoulders, his movements tight and more co-ordinated – the only thing missing is the scar. He looks like Kylo Ren, space pirate, or Kylo Ren, space smuggler even, and as she watches him approach, looking anywhere but in her direction, Rey feels herself respond.

Her heart thumps, her breathing speeds up, her lips part and there is a flush on her cheeks that didn't exist a moment ago. Something warm curls low down in her belly and anticipation dampens her palms. She stomps on the feeling furiously. This cannot be right, she cannot find him attractive in this costume, not when he is trying to become someone she hated. But black suits him, and there is something in the way he is taking charge that draws her in – this is his plan, this stupid, reckless idea that will put them both in danger and land them in the middle of her enemies. Where once he was naked and unarmed and wandering around the ruins of Exegol, now he looks and behaves as if he is used to command and part of her likes it. There is a tightening sensation in her groin as she watches him move. She has felt the urge to be with him before, but this is different, this is something more primal, more savage and it makes her ache.

He doesn't meet her gaze.

A woman's face flashes up on screen, someone Rey doesn't recognise, but Ben steps forward, emanating confidence. 'Engell.' His voice is clipped, giving nothing away.

The blonde woman in the grey uniform nods, but she too is cautious. 'Supreme Leader. This is an unexpected surprise. We thought you had perished on Exegol.'

'I was gravely injured while fighting the rebels.' Ben gestures at his face, drawing attention to the missing blemish. 'A head wound. I healed the superficial damage myself with the Force but there have been some temporary side effects, and while I was incapacitated by them I was captured by the Resistance. It has taken some time to manufacture an escape.'

'What side effects?' The woman's angular face has not softened and it does not appear that she trusts the man to whom she is speaking.

'Memory loss. Yours may be the only face I recognise.'

'And the Emperor – is he also alive?'

Rey steps forward. 'No. I killed him – at his request – and took his place on the throne.'

The woman's attention flicks over briefly. 'Then you are in charge?'

Ben's hand tightens into a fist at his side, where only Rey can see. 'No. I lead the First Order and the Empress here leads the Sith.' His words are laced with scorn. 'How many Destroyers from the Sith fleet survived Exegol, Engell?'

'None, Supreme Leader.'

'And how many of the Emperor's supporters survived?'

'Few, Supreme Leader. The Resistance captured some and killed many others.'

Ben nods, seemingly satisfied that he has made his point. 'Then the First Order remains the pre-eminent power in the galaxy, and I lead the First Order. We must remind the Resistance of this as soon as possible. You will send me a ship, Engell, and once I have resumed command, we will set about regrouping and prepare a counterstrike. That is, unless you have taken command yourself?' There is an undisguised threat in his tone, worthy of Kylo Ren himself.

The woman on screen obeys, and appears grateful to do so. 'No, Supreme Leader. As the only remaining member of the High Command I assumed charge in your absence, but the captains of the remaining Destroyers are keen to make your acquaintance. The Command is significantly larger than it once was, and there have been a number of robust debates about our next course of action. I will despatch a ship to collect you now. Will the Empress be accompanying you?'

Ben opens his mouth and Rey knows he is going to decline so she butts in first, seizing the only avenue he has left her. 'Yes. I am the Supreme Leader's consort and my place is at his side.'

Engell's icy stare passes over her again. 'You are also the scavenger girl the Supreme Leader hunted for so long. I see he caught you in the end.'

'I await the ship, Engell.' Ben snaps, cuts the call and turns to Rey. 'I don't want you coming with me.'

'You're not leaving me behind. I'll fight my way onto that ship if I have to.'

'I knew you'd say that.' He stomps a couple of paces away and folds his arms. 'Why shouldn't I just throw you in an escape pod and send you back to the Resistance?'

'Try it.' She puts her hands on her hips. 'Anywhere you go, I'll follow.' She knows in her heart this is true. No matter how she tries to rationalise it away, when the key moment comes, she can't leave him, not voluntarily.

'Fine.' He throws up his hands. 'Then play the role you've chosen. Be my consort, do as you're told, and keep your mouth shut. There are no Sith to be Empress of, it's an empty title, but if you ever want to go back to the Resistance when this is all over, I have to be in charge. I have to give the orders. It needs to look like I'm controlling your mind.'

She takes a breath to continue the argument but he just walks away. On screen the lead Star Destroyer disgorges a shiny black shuttle, along with a complement of TIE fighters, which sweep off to engage the Resistance as the shuttle heads in their direction.

'Captain Hi'Ito, many thanks for your hospitality. I will be leaving now. I wish you a long and successful career.'

The captain flashes a glance at Rey and then salutes smartly. 'It was my pleasure, Supreme Leader.'

'First Officer Dann,' Ben says, in a singsong tone Rey recognises. 'You will give up spice and return to your family.'

'I will give up spice and return to my family,' the man repeats, as his hands still on the controls.

'That won't work,' Rey mutters as she trails Ben towards the lifts. 'Mind tricks don't have any lasting impact.'

He ignores her and they stand together in the cargo bay as the First Order vessel dodges a volley of cannon fire and docks in the hangar. The ramp lowers and an escort of stormtroopers emerges but their hesitation is palpable as they see the couple who approach. The soldiers form rows eventually but one of them shakes his head and three do not drop their blasters into a ceremonial position, keeping their fingers on the triggers and their guards up. Rey has a feeling that this gamble will not pay off. She is dressed as a Jedi, and is known from her time in the Resistance – given this background it is going to be difficult to convince the Order that she has turned to the dark. And despite the colour of his clothing, Ben is not Kylo Ren.

He strides towards the shuttle, easily outpacing her, and he doesn't hesitate at all, gesturing with one hand. The four troopers are knocked off their feet, zip through the air and smash into the sides of the hangar, which are some distance away; once they are down, they do not rise. Ben spares them no attention, but enters the shuttle, leaving Rey to bring up the rear and once she is on board the ramp closes and she looks around for a seat. Inside, the ship is kitted out in black, panels and consoles, floor and ceiling all unbroken darkness. The flashing lights on the console are the only illumination by which to see Ben buckling himself into a chair behind the black helmeted pilots.

He grunts, 'Take off,' and the pilots race to comply.

He does not speak to Rey for the duration of the journey, picking up a datapad and scrutinising the schematics of a Star Destroyer. Rey is left alone to watch the Resistance attempt to blow her out of the sky. They try their best. There are a flotilla of small ships attacking the First Order shuttle, and they are light and manoeuvrable and their pilots are motivated – they have just won a war and have no desire to see the leader of the opposition reunited with his army. They dive and roll around the barrier of TIEs, searching for a way in, but the shuttle is protected by the excellent shielding of the _Long Goodnight_, and the minute those shields are cleared, the flagship Star Destroyer extends its own protection and makes the rebels' task doubly difficult. Rey cannot sense Finn out there, but she reads Poe's desperation in the increasingly risky tactics employed by her X-wing attackers. The closer they get to the fleet, the more danger they are in, but Poe does not seem to care, barely making it out of the path of the covering fire that the Destroyers lay down as the shuttle's engines roar.

Ben does not so much as glance up, exuding an air of total confidence, but his hand rakes through his hair at regular intervals and gives him away. Rey loses count of the amount of ships which are lost as she makes her escape. To date, she has murdered no one, there were injuries but no fatalities in her escape from the base on Ajan Kloss. Outside the craft, people are dying because of her, or, more accurately, because of Kylo Ren – this is what he always brings in his wake, death and destruction and pain. Just once, Ben looks up. Just once, her eyes meet his and she sees that he knows. He hears the scream of shots whizzing past the hull, feels the roll of the ship as it corrects course to avoid attack, spots the bright flash of explosions that mean a vessel has been obliterated, just as she does. He knows he is responsible and in that moment she sees the old Ben sitting across the cabin – a guilty man with blood on his hands. Then he looks away.

The minute the shuttle is safe in the hangar bay he is waiting by the ramp, tapping his foot with impatience until the pilots release the door, and then he is off, into the unknown. Rey follows more slowly, realising that for the first time, he has not taken their luggage but left it for her to carry and she follows him cautiously down the ramp and into the open space beyond. She has been on a ship like this before, and the only thing that is unfamiliar about her surroundings is the number of people waiting to meet her. A welcoming party has assembled, serious looking men and women in severe uniforms, who have clustered around Ben as he cuts through to the woman at the back of the pack.

'Engell,' he greets her coldly. 'I require a debriefing immediately.'

Rey can feel the tension in the air. She does not know if the First Order will take him in, and she is sure that Ben doesn't know either. Much depends on the blonde woman who stands for a brief second, considering the man in front of her. Then she nods.

Ben turns to the crowd surrounding him. 'You will all account for your failure on Exegol to me. In person.'

He gestures brusquely and Engell leads the way, but Ben stops for a second and says something to a simpering captain on his immediate right and the man peels away from the crowd, heading in Rey's direction. By the time he has reached her he has assessed the size of her breasts, measured the swell of her hips with his eyes and has spent some time prodding at the join of her legs with his gaze.

'The Supreme Leader instructs you to go to his quarters and await his return.' He accompanies this with a knowing leer and Rey sees her immediate future laid out in front of her.

Ben has escaped the Resistance and it is Rey who is now the prisoner. Kylo Ren has returned to his own.


	14. Chapter 14

She knows where she is going but the lascivious captain accompanies her anyway. The leader's quarters are in the same position on this ship as they were on the _Steadfast_, and the décor is identical. She seals the door on the man's assumptions and heads down the sweeping white staircase that leads to the main lounge, although there is nowhere to sit in this room either. These quarters have either been cleared, or were never used, because there are no personal effects of any kind – Darth Vader's mask is not lurking in a corner, stolen weapons are not placed on a cabinet and all the screens are blank. Rey's steps tap loudly on the hard floor.

She puts her pack down and begins to explore. As expected, the indentations in the walls lead to other rooms, which are closed off until she pushes the correct button on the panel in the lounge. There is a study, complete with a full size holoprojector, the latest comms devices and a library interface which Ben is bound to love. An exercise room is next, full of equipment Rey doesn't recognise but a bigger surprise is the recreation area provided behind the next door, which houses a comfortable looking sofa and a large screen built into the wall, surrounded by grilles that will contain audio equipment; there is even a soft covering on the floor.

She approaches her third shared bedroom with a sense of resignation. This one is the largest by far, with a bed so big she can lie across it and not reach the edges and it is covered in sheets of a brilliant white, which are so crisp they must be new. The walls in here are grey, most likely because whoever designed the interior of this ship recognised that sleeping in a reflective white cube might not be the most enjoyable experience, and the fresher off the bedroom is state of the art, with hot and cold running water and a full size bath. These are the contents of her prison.

Rey drifts from room to room, opening doors, pushing buttons, fiddling with the lights, too tense to stay still. Somewhere on this ship, Ben is pretending to be a monster but there is nothing she can do to stop it – from the moment he called the Order she was trapped. There are too many of them to fight, she can only play along, and she has to hope that his ability to disguise himself has improved. She does not leave her rooms, but she does figure out how to work the internal comms system and she sends out for food and clothes. It is late into the night and she is dozing on the bed in her pyjamas when the door finally opens and Ben returns.

Round eyed, she watches as the black helmet comes off and is tossed onto a chair, followed by the gloves and the wide belt. He sits to remove his boots, then loosens his tunic and throws it over the rest until he is wearing only trousers and a top which are identical to those she still carries in her bag, apart from the hole. She doesn't ask where this new outfit has come from, he didn't have the mask on Kef Bir, so he must have left it with the Order before their fight – no doubt all his possessions were put into storage when he disappeared. He flops back onto the covers and heaves a long sigh.

'How was your day?' she asks cautiously.

'Surprisingly easy,' he closes his eyes as he speaks. 'I now know the size of the remaining fleet down to the last fighter, I know which planets remain under our control and which have fallen, I know the number and location of all our troops, and I know the co-ordinates of the Order's secret base in the Unknown Regions. I spent most of the day interviewing captains for a place on the High Command – some I choked, some I promoted, some were so incompetent they're now sweeping the floors, and throughout all of this I was asking myself one question.' He rolls on his side to face her and fixes her with eyes which hold both query and reproach. 'When were you going to tell me?'

'Tell you what?'

'That I'm Ben.'

A strangled something comes out of her mouth, but she has no idea what she is trying to say. Her eyes swim and his face disintegrates into a watery blur.

'It's right there in the First Order records,' he muses, sounding carefully neutral. 'Kylo Ren's real name was Ben Solo. All this time I've thought a piece of your heart belonged to someone else, that you were mourning the death of someone, the mysterious, saintly Ben, but today I finally worked out that your concept of death isn't the same as everyone else's. Kylo Ren didn't die, he was just an identity, he couldn't be killed, not really, and my guess is that 'Ben's' death was the same. He's not dead either, he just went somewhere you couldn't reach.'

She tries to speak again but it comes out as a snort or a grunt or some indistinguishable sound that is part speech and part weeping. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling.

'I understand why you rescued me from the Resistance. It wasn't because I reminded you of someone else, or because I might have useful intelligence, or because you thought I was a danger and were considering whether or not to murder me. You rescued me because you're in love with me.'

'Have you?' she tries. 'Have you?'

But he carries on. 'You're in love with me and you're been trying to help me remember who I am. It all makes sense now. The way you looked at me when I struggled with the Force, how disappointed you were with everything I did, the expectation on your face when you kissed me – you were hoping I'd remember being Ben.'

'Do you?' she sniffles.

'No. I don't remember anything before I woke up on the floor on Exegol. But I remember lots of things afterwards.' He rolls onto his side, props his head on one hand and uses the other to draw patterns on the sheet between them. 'I remember the way I felt when I met you for the first time. There was something between us, a flicker of something, in the Force as well I think, and you seemed so familiar that when you took me into the fresher I wasn't sure if you were going to stay or not. I thought we might be involved somehow. And then you said you were only trying to work out who I was and I thought my first impression must be wrong. Now I think I was right all along. You think I'm Ben, don't you?'

She nods, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. 'He didn't really die, you were right. Not strictly speaking. He became one with the Force, he faded away and there wasn't a body. Then you turned up in nearly the same place a couple of hours later, and I thought there was a good chance you were him – that you'd found a way back to me through some bit of mysterious Jedi teaching. That thing you asked me about in the Jedi texts – the world between worlds – maybe it was that. I've heard them, you see, the Jedi ghosts and I've seen Luke raise an X-wing with the Force even though he's dead so I know that no one's ever really gone. I thought that maybe you'd been sent back somehow because it wasn't fair, it really wasn't fair the way you died. We had so little time.' She is crying again, but she brushes the tears away as fast as she can. 'The memory loss might be a side effect of dying. I died too and I haven't come back the same. I wasn't like this before, not angry all the time. I'm sorry I keep taking it out on you.'

'He was obsessed with you, you know, Kylo Ren. I have access to all his personal accounts now and there are pictures, intelligence reports, maps that track your movements over the last year.'

Rey grabs a tissue and blows her nose. 'He was a monster. I never wanted him. Only Ben.'

There is a pause, and his hand stills. 'Do you think you might still want me? Even if I don't get my memories back? Because that piece of your heart, I'd quite like it to be mine again.'

She has to blink a few times to clear her eyes and then she swats his chest. 'Idiot.'

A shadow of a smile crosses his face and then he flips onto his back again and holds out his arm. She snuggles into his side as she has done for the last few nights and rests her head in the curl of his shoulder while he completes the embrace and gets comfortable.

'So how was your day, little consort?'

She pokes him in the ribs. 'I don't like being in prison. And if I don't get out of this room soon everyone in the First Order is going to think you're only keeping me around for one thing.'

He raises his arm, whacks a pillow a few times and stuffs it under his head. 'And what thing would that be?'

'Consorting.'

She watches him smile from underneath. 'Would that be so bad?'

'Yes. Especially since we aren't actually consorting with each other.'

'Not yet,' he says. 'But I'm intending to kiss you very soon.'

Although she is lying down, Rey feels wobbly. He sounds calm, but she can hear that his heartrate is increasing through the solid wall of his chest and she is conscious of a nervous twist gripping her stomach.

'Earlier today you said you were done with me. You wanted to leave me behind.'

'That was before I realised how desperate for me you really are.'

She pokes his chest again, and she has to control the shake in her hand to do it. 'I think I liked you better when you were dead.'

He shifts beneath her, runs a hand quickly though his hair and then he sits up, pushing her off. 'Lights,' he orders.

The room plunges into the total darkness that only a chamber without windows can manage. Rey reaches out but she can't see her fingers and Ben is no longer lying next to her. She hears the rustle of clothing being removed, and then the flick of covers being pulled back before the mattress sighs as it takes his weight. She scrambles beneath the sheets and then she waits.

'Come here, little consort,' he murmurs, in a tone she hasn't heard him use before, deep and low and breathy, and this time the nickname sounds like the most intimate endearment, rather than a tease.

She waits, but she can feel the heat of him approaching in the darkness, hear how fast his respiration has become and she jumps when his fingers make contact with the side of her face and then slide tentatively past her ear. He spends a while adjusting his palm and she suspects he is enjoying the sensation of her hair, loose as it always is at night, sliding over the back of his hand. His thumb scrapes gently across her cheek, coming to rest at the corner of her mouth and then there is the whisper of sheets and his body fills her senses. She is familiar with the heat of his embrace, but he feels like a furnace tonight, burning up the darkness as he gets closer. In contrast, she is frozen where she lies, anticipation, excitement and fear fixing her in place.

His lips brush hers gently, and they are warm and dry, as soft as she remembers, but he lingers only a moment before the pressure is gone and he has retreated to the other side of the bed.

Rey lies there blinking. This is not the kiss she was expecting. This brief, faltering thing is not the contact she wants from him, and all the tremulous emotions which have held her in place are swept away in a sudden rush of impatience. She has not defied the Resistance for this, she has not launched herself into the middle of the First Order to have this as her reward. She needs more.

Her stasis breaks and she scrabbles across the sheets, clambers the hill of his chest and slings a leg over his stomach, capturing his face in both hands before he can resist. She attacks his lips with an open mouth and she is not skilled, or considerate, or even that gentle, and he jerks in surprise. All she has is passion. Her fingernails scratch into his hair and the kiss she lands on him is fierce, wet and clumsy and it is filled with the thwarted desire of the last few days and the knowledge of how quickly loss can strike.

It is a kiss that cannot be denied.


	15. Chapter 15

He tries for a minute though, he lies there and he doesn't respond so she opens her mouth a little more and grazes his lower lip with her teeth until he relents. He relaxes his jaw and she is inside him with an exploratory tongue, pushing her lips firmly to his, diving into his depths, learning his taste. He is more delicate, reciprocating the kiss only when the first flurry of her tongue has abated, his hand coming up to sink into her hair and she can feel him trying to moderate the speed of her mouth, the pressure as she drives herself into him, the desperation as she clutches his face.

His kiss is more lasting, slower, and he tilts his head to the side so that when their mouths meet he can enter her more deeply. She won't let up, and her teeth bash his one too many times. She feels his frustration as he yanks his head away, his hands come up over her back, grip her tightly and then she is forcibly rolled over so that he is now on top.

'Slowly,' he mutters. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

He bends down and this time, he is in charge and she is pinned beneath his weight as he begins the kiss again in a slow, deliberate rhythm that suggests he is learning how this activity should be done. She finds that she likes this position more, because where previously she was straddling his stomach, now his hips are between her legs and with only a little wriggling he is exactly where she needs him to be. She spreads her legs wider and wraps them around his waist. Her hands span his chest, the wide, naked expanse of chest that she has used as a pillow but which has now become an object of much desire. She wants to touch all of it, explore every inch with her fingers and her tongue but she starts by locating his right nipple with the edge of her nail. He jumps at the contact and the joining of their mouths is interrupted.

'I don't want to go slowly,' she stretches upwards, yanks him down and kisses her way along his neck until his earlobe is within reach and she can nibble at it.

The shudder he gives is palpable and it presses his hips into closer contact with hers. Deliberately, she shifts beneath him, rocks her pelvis against his underwear agonisingly slowly as she attempts to locate the right point of friction.

'I can tell,' he replies.

Before she can stir him into a response, he has flipped them over again and she is back on top where she can take full advantage. She abandons his mouth in favour of a line of kisses along his jaw, speeding down his neck with her tongue and sucking on the junction of his collarbone with a pressure she knows will leave a mark.

He runs an admonitory finger down her arm. 'I won't leave you, I promise.'

She doesn't believe him. Something deep down inside her has lost the ability to trust him. He has done this to her before, she thought she had him once in Snoke's throneroom but he turned from her and embraced power instead, and the second time she thought he was hers, he died. This time she isn't going to let him go. The truth is that she is desperate for him, exactly as he said, there is a panic in her heart at the thought of coming this close and losing him again.

She has never really understood what he meant by the dyad concept, the two that are one, but as she runs her hands possessively over his torso she thinks that this might be it. She wants to feel him inside her, but more than that she wants to feel connected to him again, she wants to be with someone who understands her instinctively, on a level that doesn't require words. She doesn't want to be alone, and he is the only person she has ever met who might make that possible. There are tears in her eyes, and something sticks in her throat.

He moves suddenly, catching her off guard, breaking out of the passive position into which she has forced him. He surges upwards, and in the darkness his fingers search for the hem of her top and then he yanks it roughly over her head and flings it away, his hands coming up to climb the ladder of her spine, his fist knotting in the hair at the nape of her neck. Her head is pulled backwards as his mouth seals itself on her lips and his kiss no longer careful, but matches the intensity of hers. She digs her nails into his shoulders and after a few seconds during which he establishes that she isn't going to move, he releases her hair and his hands go everywhere.

He scrunches her breasts into his palms and she whimpers into his mouth. The feeling is tight and hot, her flesh squeezed between his fingers as he takes control and a throb begins, slow and heavy in her groin. His left hand relaxes, but it doesn't let go and instead his fingers flick across her nipple, rubbing and rolling, demanding that the soft skin become hard under his touch. His right hand is diving downwards, slipping under the waistband of her shorts and exploring the rounded swell of her backside. She is just beginning to enjoy that when her jaw is no longer straining to accommodate his tongue, his lips have stopped their bruising assault and he shifts his grip to the centre of her chest and pushes.

She overbalances, unable to correct, and falls onto her back in an untidy sprawl of arms and legs. He is on her before she has stopped moving, pinning her down, his right leg inserting itself between her thighs, spreading her legs as he rests his weight on her side. His lips find her chest, sink lower and her breast is in his mouth but before she can react to that, he pushes his hand into her shorts and his index finger makes contact with her clitoris. She doesn't know what to do – her back tries to arch into the wet heat of his kiss and her hips want to buck against the pressure of his finger but he is heavy and she can only shift the left hand side of her body. His mouth sucks and his finger rubs and she doesn't care about anything anymore.

It is impossible to think about death and loneliness with a man's hand between her legs. He works her quickly and efficiently towards climax, the friction fast and hard and on the verge of being painful but it is what she wants, what she needs and he seems to know that. His erection is an uncomfortable press against her thigh and much as she would like to roll over and do something for him in return, she cannot move. She is helpless, restrained by his bulk, surrendered to the exquisite actions of his finger and the slippery suction of his mouth. She doesn't have to be in charge anymore, she doesn't need to worry about recovering his memories or the danger they are in from one army or the other, or the strange personality change which has come over her since Exegol. She knows only that Ben is going to make her come.

The darkness fills with light as she spills over, tears falling from her eyes unheeded as she shakes in the throes of orgasm and he lets go of her chest to concentrate on extracting every last shudder he can from a body which has never felt this level of pleasure before. When it is over he shifts away and gathers her into his arms. She is asleep before his heartbeat has returned to normal.

When she wakes it is to the sensation of being kissed. Someone is pressing soft lips to her forehead, her temples, all down her cheeks. It is probably the most pleasant way she has ever been woken and when she blinks her eyelids she finds that the room is dimly lit and Ben's face is above her, haloed in a tangle of unruly hair. He says nothing, but there is warmth in his eyes as he leans forward to claim her mouth. This time she lets him lead, the press of her desire no longer so urgent, and he kisses her mouth open fraction by fraction and then takes his time reacquainting himself with the contours of her palate, detouring leisurely around the confines of her mouth. She winds her fingers into his hair. His hand runs down her side, pausing at the fabric still bunched over her hips until she slips off her pyjama bottoms and gives him free rein.

She spreads her fingers across his chest, walking the path over his muscles from arm to arm, more trusting now that this will not be the only opportunity she has to explore. He maps the skin of her throat and then a flex of his shoulders indicates he would like her to turn from her side onto her back and she obliges, her mouth kissed into soft submission as he leaves it empty. She senses that this time he wants to watch because his eyes don't leave her face as his hand travels downwards, across her chest to circle her breasts. She raises her arm with half a thought to stroke his cheek but a slight frown indicates he doesn't want her participation so instead she relaxes her legs, bends one at the knee and lets the other fall open and is rewarded with the darkening of his eyes as his pupils dilate. With the way clear his hand continues its journey, wandering over her stomach, pausing to cup the mound at the apex of her legs and then drifting lower.

His face changes when his fingers slide easily between her legs, their passage smoothed by the residue of old orgasm and new arousal and he looks pleased almost, gratified that she is so ready. He reaches up with his free hand and hauls pillows for her to pile beneath her back while the other continues to slick up and down within her folds, learning, exploring. Whatever it is he has planned he wants her to watch too. For a time they sit together, focused on the sight of his fingers trailing slowly between her thighs as her face grows hot and her forehead damp. Then his finger dips inside her.

The penetration is deep and unexpected and she clenches around it, her eyelids flickering but she holds his gaze. His finger comes out and then buries itself within her again and her chest comes up off the mound of pillows with the sensations flooding her groin. He shifts on the bed so that he is sitting in the opposite direction, facing her and if she hadn't realised before what he is about to do, she does now. He is slow, steady and patient, and he checks her reaction at regular intervals as his fingers stretch her open. What starts as a tight push inside her and an unfamiliar fullness morphs into a hot warmth between her legs as she takes two thick fingers and he begins to push deeper, more quickly while she pants out her enjoyment and can't tear her eyes from the sight of his hand thrusting rhythmically between her thighs. She spreads herself open and the angle changes as he takes the opportunity to settle himself in the wider gap she has made.

A pressure at her entrance signals the presence of another finger but she is so tight against his hand now that she thinks she may have reached the limit of what she can fit and she is about to tell him so when she feels his tongue. His head is between her legs and he is flicking determinedly at her clitoris, his mouth a hot, wet contradiction, both soft and hard at the same time, his hand wedged somewhere deep inside her body. The room fills with the moist slapping noise his tongue makes as he licks her into orgasm, and she watches while every sweep takes her closer and his eyes remain fixed on hers. He wants her to watch. He wants her to know that he is doing this to her, this is his mouth, his hand, the pleasure she feels he is giving her because he is real and alive and they are together. This is how he intends to make amends for dying.

He is glorious to watch, from the tiny crease of concentration between his eyebrows to the rhythmic bunch of muscles in his shoulders as his hand plunges in and out and she is taken back to the first time they met, when he was still formal and severe, so distant from the man who is now lavishing attention on her orgasm. She would like this to last, she wants this tension between them to carry on building, she wants the connection to grow because although he has been in her head, their bodies hide secrets which have not yet been shared. He adjusts the angle of his hand though, and his fingers push deep, striking a spot which triggers her internal walls to clench, pushes her legs together involuntarily, brings fire to her face and stops her breath. He does it again and she knows he sees the impact it has on her, because he seldom misses much and his eyebrows raise in a query.

He prods the place inside again, and then again and the sensation is so strong she tries to twist away. The glint in his eye turns feral and he comes at her with the blade of his tongue in a furious rush and a hand which pistons away in its tight prison while her legs attempt to close and her fists clamp down into the sheets. She forgets to look, to watch how he is manipulating her body because two forms of climax are bearing down on her simultaneously and she thinks the force may break her apart. She crests with a guttural cry, wrenched from the depths of her being and she is coming on his face, on his hand, orgasming with a power she didn't know existed, her groin spiked with an ecstasy so strong it is nearly painful. She doesn't know how long she stays in that state, or for how long he keeps up the same punishing rhythm but eventually the moment shatters and she sags, breathless and spent.

She moans as he extracts his fingers, sore and aching and his tongue is no longer there to soothe the hurt so she lies while the sheets beneath her absorb her sweat and the sticky seep from between her legs. She hears the door to the fresher close, and then water run but she pays it no mind. There is no energy within her to move, or to think, or to wonder what happens next and she drifts in the afterglow until the noise of him dressing forces her to open her eyes.

He is standing at the end of the bed, an expression on his face as he surveys her which is unmistakeably pride, with a hint of triumph and more than a smattering of smug satisfaction. She knows she should cut him down to size but he has just delivered an orgasm of epic proportions and she really can't be bothered.

He pulls on his gloves, picks up the helmet and bends close. 'I'm going to think about you all day, lying here, looking like that.'

She manages to wave a dismissive hand, which gets a chuckle in response which is even more conceited and then his footsteps tap across the floor as he leaves.

He is back only moments later. She doesn't crack an eye. 'I'm going to think about you all day, lying here, looking like that, desperate for me to come back and start all over again.'

This time she pulls a face and he retreats for the second time but he returns before she has time to miss him. 'And you're going to think about me all day too, because you know that tonight I'm going to be inside you.'

Despite what her body has just been through her groin decides it is ready to go again and the throb she feels at these words is enough to raise yet another blush. He leaves chortling to himself.


	16. Chapter 16

His footsteps retreat into silence and she lies there, knowing she should get up. If what he has just promised is true, there is a visit she needs to pay, and more than that, lying around in bed all day is the job of a consort, and not a fully fledged, battle hardened Jedi warrior who has defeated someone claiming to be all the Sith. Still she doesn't move. Her body is aching as the places he touched aren't used to exercise but mostly she feels relaxed, cared for, loved even, because the gift of his mouth was given selflessly, and he has gone off to work unfulfilled.

A strange crackle from the ceiling disturbs her reverie, and then his voice ruins it completely. 'You look exceedingly beautiful.'

She frowns. Of course there is surveillance equipment in the Supreme Leader's quarters – why wouldn't there be? A swift glance down at her body confirms he is mistaken. One of her breasts bears faint pink marks which are likely to be fingerprints and the skin between her legs is mottled red and white. The line of hair she maintains down below is matted and beginning to crust, above swollen lips and a vagina which is still throbbing. She is aware that she smells of sweat and even less pleasant body fluids. 'I look like I've just had sex,' she contradicts.

'As I said, exceedingly beautiful.'

She sighs. 'Where are you? Can you be overheard?'

'I'm walking down the corridor, and no, no one can hear us. This helmet is amazing. I can switch off the external microphone so that I can speak in private and I can call up camera feeds from anywhere on the ship and have them play inside. I can record everything I see, read reports, view charts, dictate messages, anything. I have no idea why Ren smashed this up.'

'Is there surveillance in the fresher?' she asks.

'A camera in the shower and another over the bath.'

'Can you arrange for there not to be?'

He gives a mock-heavy sigh. 'If I have to.'

'Good. I'll see you tonight.' She rolls over and drags herself upright on muscles which have lost all cohesion, stretching her arms over her head and shaking out her limbs before stepping across the room.

'I can still taste you,' he says.

She tries to decide if this is hot, or just indicative of poor oral hygiene while she runs a bath and then relaxes in it for longer than she has ever done before. This much water is pure indulgence and it soothes away the remaining niggles while scenting her skin like some kind of perfumed flower. She takes care of various personal grooming issues, but mostly, she finds that she is thinking about him, and what he wants to do later, exactly as he predicted she would. After a while, she decides that it isn't the steam in the fresher which is overheating her body, but the memory of last night and lurid dreams of the night to come.

She feels a focused determination as she exits the fresher, trying to get her responses under control, and dresses in one of the captain's uniforms she ordered from the First Order stores yesterday, tucking her hair under a regulation hat. But when she tries the door of her quarters she finds it is locked.

His voice echoes from the ceiling after she has been attempting to bypass the controls for five minutes or so. 'You can't leave,' he says. 'It isn't safe for either of us. Stay inside and wait for me to come back.'

'It's not safe in here either,' she answers. 'I need to leave to make sure that it is safe.'

'That doesn't make any sense,' he complains. 'I'm ordering you not to leave.'

'I don't want children with you,' she tells him bluntly. 'Not now. So if you're still planning on doing the thing you said you were planning on doing tonight then I need to get out of here.' She finally manages to trip the lock and the door light changes to green. She cocks half an eye at the ceiling. 'Unless of course, you were planning on just being inside my mouth.'

'I can get a medical droid to come to you,' he insists, before his voice loses its stubborn tone and takes on a darker shade. 'And I'm planning on being inside everything.'

She strides out of the suite with a new flush on her face. Half way down the corridor, after the first two curious looks she realises that she is being stupid. There aren't that many captains left in the Order and wandering around dressed in one of their uniforms is asking to be recognised. She concentrates hard for a minute, attempting to coax the Force into giving her the features of Captain Hi'Ito, who was probably welcome here, once upon a time, and then she makes a break for the nearest maintenance area. The spare clothes of a service technician are of poorer quality, just a button up black tunic and loose grey trousers but dressed in them, and with a bag of tools in her hand, she will blend into the background more easily.

She makes her way to the medical bay, where healthcare is freely available and a droid dispenses a contraceptive shot which will last for as long as she doesn't take the antidote. While she is there, she also gets a spectrum of bloodtests done, which show that she has no communicable diseases, lists out those to which she is already immune, and those against which she should consider getting protected. She tells the droid to copy the results to the Supreme Leader, which may prompt him to get his own checks. She knows absolutely nothing about the sexual habits of his previous, pre-death incarnation, and there is no harm in being safe.

Now that she is out, she has no desire to go back into incarceration and besides, this ship is so different to the various Destroyers, Dreadnoughts and planet killing bases she has been on that she wants to look around. The ship is crammed with people. She has to stand aside at multiple intervals to allow squadrons of training stormtroopers to jog past her in the corridors and there are a larger number of senior ranking military wandering about than she is used to. She drifts through the decks, walking purposefully but going nowhere, simply observing the general air of urgency which permeates the vessel. Droids hurry from place to place, technicians in similar clothing to hers are at work in every significant junction, and when she wanders down to the main hangers, she finds that there is no spare inch of space which is not stacked with all kinds of craft, the majority of which are being refuelled or maintained in some manner.

She has no credentials for First Order systems to find out what is going on, but their internal broadcast channel is playing in every recreation area and the same few broadcasts are on repeat. The ship she is standing on, the new flagship, is called the _Obdurate_, and it is one of thirty eight _Resurgent_ class Star Destroyers to have survived the massacre of Exegol. This is Captain Engell's command, inherited, along with management of the stormtrooper training programme, from Captain Phasma. From overheard conversations amongst the other staff, Rey learns that this ship fled to the Jinata system immediately after the fall of Palpatine, where it collected thousands of nearly trained recruits from Engell's training programme. These soldiers are now completing the remainder of their course on board, with intensive weapons drills and hand to hand combat. Others have been sent to man the other Destroyers, on which similar preparations are underway.

It is difficult to get an idea of numbers while pretending to eat lunch in the enormous mess hall, but Rey gleans that, although their capital ships are limited, the Order still has a significant number of heavy cruisers, transports and frigates, and their complement of fighters is steadily increasing. Pilots speak of the new ships arriving daily from the Kuat-Entralla dockyards, which have yet to sever links with the Order, and although she gets no hint of hidden superweapons or another secret fleet, there can be no doubt that the Order still poses a significant threat. Moreover, this is a militia which has been defeated, but which is not yet destroyed and its internal propaganda is relentlessly positive. The broadcasts suggest that it is only a matter of time before the First Order strikes back.

The more time Rey spends on board the more convinced she is that she must get a message through to the Resistance, and she must do so urgently. The fact that they are wasting time chasing her around the galaxy suggests they do not realise the scale of the threat. The Order has reassembled at co-ordinates deep in the Unknown Regions, far from conquered space, but they have maintenance and construction facilities out here, smaller space stations which can be used to assist their efforts to rebuild, and they are rebuilding quickly.

Much of the talk on board concerns Kylo Ren. His reappearance appears totemic for the members of this beaten navy, his resurgence raising the possibility that they too will return to power. His name is whispered in corridors, nodded between bites over dinner – he brings them hope.

It was a bad decision to come here, Rey sees after a while, a selfish decision, because by giving their leader back to them, she has ensured that the First Order will rise again. He gives them a point around which to rally, and it would have been better for the peace of the galaxy if she had surrendered to the Resistance, rather than permitting him to make this call. She must act, and act now, but it is difficult to know what to do for the best. She could steal a hyperdrive enabled craft and flee, but with the fleet assembled it is unlikely she could run far enough or fast enough to escape. Any message she sends will be intercepted and she will be captured and executed. There is only one man on board who may in a position to help, who may be able to speak privately enough to send a message to her old friends across the stars.

She can't locate Ben because she can't access the Order's systems, but there is enough of a map in the public areas for her to pinpoint the office marked 'captain' on the command deck of the ship. As the senior ranking officer, this is where he will be. A combination of mind control and the simple ability of people to ignore those who are less important than themselves gets her to the door of his chamber, and a hasty search of the toolbox she carries locates a master key which lets her in. The room is outfitted in white, to match the private quarters in which she is living, and it too is completely impersonal, devoid of any special touches to confirm that he has ever visited, let alone commanded from this place. The walls are filled with flashing panels and there is a large white desk towards the back of the room but no other furniture apart from a chair, which she appropriates.

She is attempting to work out how to hack into the personal accounts of Kylo Ren when the door hisses open and she is captured. It is not Ben standing there but a coterie of guards, all outfitted in the red armour which means they are Sith troopers, the only ones she has seen on board. She does not take this as a good sign.

'A security breach has been detected in this area,' states the lead soldier without lowering his weapon. 'State your identification number and purpose.'

Rey raises her toolbox expansively. 'I got the same report. I was sent here to investigate the breach but so far, no luck. Looks like a malfunction in the comms relay. I'll let you know when I fix it, okay?'

The troop leader is having none of it. 'State your identification number and purpose.' He nods at his second in command, who speaks into his arm panel.

'Intruder located in the Supreme Leader's office. Send a detention squad.'

'Wait a minute,' Rey protests. 'I'm just a maintenance tech, I haven't done anything wrong.' She stands slowly, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. 'I'll be on my way and you can investigate the breach yourselves.'

Four blaster rifles swivel to face in her direction. 'State your identification number,' the red helmeted soldier demands.

Rey waves her hand. 'You don't need my identification number.'

The red trooper nods again at his second in command, who raises his arm. 'Hostile Force user apprehended in the Supreme Leader's office. Request immediate assistance. Repeat – hostile Force user detected, send assistance immediately.'

Rey sighs. Sith troopers, she thinks, raised on Exegol and led by Palpatine, of course they will be familiar with mind tricks. Maybe they will be more susceptible to her lightning. She raises her hands to begin firing but the door hisses again and Ben is through it almost before it has completed its cycle.

'Stand down,' he barks. 'All units, stand down.' His mask rotates to face her and she is sure that underneath he is seething. 'This woman is here at my command. She is my consort, she arrived with me yesterday. That is her identification.'

Rey finds it highly significant that the troopers do not stand down immediately, although their rifles do drop a notch. The leader faces Ben directly in a display of either extreme bravery or extreme stupidity. 'What is her purpose here?' he asks.

Ben raises a hand and the soldier's feet swing in the air wildly. 'I require her services. I no longer require yours.' He flings the unfortunate man at the closed door and there is a dull thud before the soldier slides down into a crumpled heap upon the floor. His attention flips back to Rey. 'Kneel,' he demands, and she catches the furious tone and drops to her knees without argument.

The three remaining soldiers drag their unresponsive comrade from the room and Rey has a quick glimpse of a large number of uniforms massing in the corridor outside below a similar number of curious faces.

The minute the door seals Ben rips off his mask and she has the full benefit of his anger. 'What are you doing here? I ordered you to stay in your room.'

She gets to her feet slowly. 'I left anyway. We need to get out of here, now. The First Order are planning a counterattack. We have to warn the Resistance.'

'You think I don't know that? What do you think I spent this morning doing?'

She blinks at him. 'You were organising a counterattack on the Resistance? Why?'

'Because they're the Resistance, and we're the First Order and unless you've forgotten, I'm Kylo Ren.'

'But you're not.' It is very important that he grasps this point. 'You're not him anymore.'

'No,' he snaps. 'If you want to stay alive long enough to get out of here, Kylo Ren is exactly who I am. Don't you understand what's happening? Just because the First Order are your enemies doesn't make them stupid. They trust me about as much as the Resistance did. I'm guarded everywhere I go by Force sensitive troopers like the ones you just met, so that I can't get away with anything. Engell is monitoring every meeting I have, every communication I send, everyone I talk to. It took me three hours yesterday just to remove the listening devices in our quarters, and in this room and I had to take the damn helmet to pieces to destroy all the tracking tech.'

'I don't care.' Her anger is already prepared to strike. 'I'm still a Jedi and I will not let the First Order undo everything I did on Exegol.'

'Everyone knows what you are, Rey. I've seen the reports from surviving Sith acolytes and so has everyone else. You murdered Palpatine. You're the biggest threat the Order faces, and they know it. The only reason you are still alive is that you and Ren had such a history. He was hunting you and he openly said he was going to turn you to the dark side – they think he succeeded so they're tolerating you, for the moment. But that will only hold as long as you continue to obey. You have to stay in your room.'

'I can't,' she squares her shoulders, preparing for a fight. 'I won't. I can't hide what I am. I will bring down the First Order with or without you.'

He rolls his eyes, more frustrated than angry. 'Can you drop the temper, just for a minute, and think? I'm not asking you to turn to the dark side, I'm asking you to spend some time on board while I gather enough intelligence to destroy this organisation once and for all. You can give all that data to the Resistance as soon as we are safely out of here and on our way to Exegol. But it will take a few days before I'm able to command a ship unsupervised and in the meantime, you're just going to have to trust me.'

'We should fight our way out. We have lightsabers, we could take them all on, fight our way to the hangar bay and steal a ship right now.'

'I don't want to,' he states simply. 'I don't want to have to kill anyone. So far, the only people who have died have been Resistance and First Order pilots trying to prevent our escape – it's bad enough that I couldn't stop that, the last thing I want to do is start slaughtering people on this ship who are just following orders. Is that what you want to do? Go around killing people? Is that the Jedi way?'

She grits her teeth, preparing to reject another lecture about the correct behaviour for Jedi, but something in his face finally reaches her through the red mist.

'If we fight our way out then there will be no difference between me and Kylo Ren,' he finishes.

She doesn't have an answer to that, and the anger trickles away as she stands there and stares at him – clad in the same uniform, but so different beneath the surface. The last thing she wants is to force him back into his old persona. Giving up, she spreads her hands. 'Then what do we do?'

The suggestion of a grin plays around his mouth. 'We carry on pretending. I pretend to be Supreme Leader, and you pretend to be my consort. Which you're doing a spectacularly bad job of at the moment, by the way. Where did you find that outfit?'

She glances down, remembering what she's wearing. 'Maintenance locker room on level three.'

'It'll have to come off.' He is across the room in a few steps and then he knots his fists in the collar of her tunic and rips it down the middle, buttons popping off to bounce across the floor.

She gapes at him, but before she can protest he is reaching for the breast band she wears underneath and that is also rent in two, although the stretchy material takes slightly longer to destroy. 'This is equally bad,' he says.

She stands in the middle of his office with her breasts covered only by a ruined piece of cloth; she will be unable to leave this room without holding the front of her tunic together if she wants to walk out with her modesty intact. 'What are you doing?' she demands as he moves around to her back.

His fingers fiddle with her hair, tugging on the buns she keeps it in. 'When we came on board you said you were my consort. Not my bodyguard, or my friend, or my long lost sister. You chose consort. Now you have to behave like a consort. There will be guards outside the room right now, as well as the entire High Command, with whom I was planning an attack before I had to rush out to come and rescue you. They are going to wonder what we've been doing in here. I told the guards I required your services. It needs to look like I've been getting them.'

She doesn't completely follow what he means, but that may be because he is now running his fingers slowly through her hair, smoothing it out over her shoulders, and taking such obvious pleasure in doing it that she finds herself enjoying what he is doing too. She tips her head back, exposing her neck.

He leaves her hair and circles her again, and she finds that his eyes have taken on a hint of the hunger they held this morning while his head was busy between her legs. The memory of that experience heats her groin. 'What services?' she asks in an uncertain voice.

He ignores that and his mouth comes very close, his lips nuzzling a spot just below her ear. 'Hold still.' His breath is warm and it makes her shiver. 'This may hurt a bit.'

His mouth is open on her throat and his tongue makes contact with her skin, just a few gentle caresses and she wonders about the warning, but then she feels his teeth and the pressure on her neck increases as he begins to suck. She understands what he is doing. He is marking her, setting a bruise into her flesh so that everyone who sees her will know to whom she belongs. Before she can process whether she likes this idea or not she is distracted by an unfamiliar sensation. Cold, something cold but supple at the same time brushes the bare skin of her stomach and then settles firmly on her breast. Leather gloves. He is wearing leather gloves and he is feeling her breast with them.

She takes a great gulp of air, a throb of excitement jerking her hips forward and she makes a tortured sound worthy of a caged animal when he starts rolling her nipple between his fingers. His mouth releases, moves downwards slightly and starts all over again in a different place on her neck and it is not exactly pleasure that she feels, but something hot and dark and discomforting. It makes her wet.

Her fingers clutch the fabric of his tunic, pulling him closer and there is a barely perceptible groan from him as their bodies make contact. He is hard inside his trousers and the bump of that heat against her stomach sends a wash of lubrication surging through her sex. With trembling fingers, she reaches for his belt, unhooks it and lets it slide onto the floor. He tenses slightly, but he doesn't resist, and she feels the pace of his mouth slow when she reaches under his tunic for the fastening of his pants. He is supposed to look like he has been receiving her services, after all, and not the other way round.

Inside his trousers, her fingers skim over bulging fabric on their way to find the waistband of his underwear and he gives up kissing her entirely, just standing fixed in place with his head down and his eyes closed. There is tremendous power in this, she senses, this ability to make another person completely surrender simply by offering to meet their desires. She slips her hand inside, feels the coarse brush of hair, and inches lower. He seems to have given up breathing. She has never seen him look so vulnerable, not even when he was naked and defenceless and unable to remember his own name.

This is what she saw in that recording, she recalls, her wandering fingers carefully exploring. He is hard beneath the tight grip of her hand, a grip which has to stretch to encompass his girth, and as she slides that grip carefully down his length she realises how much bigger he is now than in that stolen picture. He's not moving, his eyes screwed shut, but his mouth is loose and his lips have gone red and he reacts to every faint caress of her hand with a swift inhalation of breath through his nose. She likes him this way. She likes to make him struggle for air as she tugs his cock. She likes the sticky warmth which covers her thumb when it gets near the leaking end and she likes the way he sways forward now to match the movements of her hand. She wants to make him come.

The thought of having that much control over him is exhilarating. It arouses her just to think of it and she forgets that she is in an office and not in a bedroom; the people waiting outside the door cease to matter. This is between the two of them.

'You wanted me to kneel,' she reminds him and his eyes pop open.

His pupils are huge as he watches her lower herself slowly to her knees, taking his pants with her. She sees him at close range for the first time, this glistening, blunt appendage bobbing at eye level, wreathed in thick veins, pulsing gently under stretched-smooth skin. First she puts both her hands around him and then she puts him in her mouth.

It is a tight fit, but so very much worth it. He flushes red instantly and he can't tear his gaze away from the place where he is disappearing between her lips. He stumbles when he tries to speak, settles for running a leather clad hand down her cheek. She relaxes her jaw and pushes him in. It doesn't seem to matter that she has never done this before, that she isn't sure what to do with her tongue, or that she grazes him with her teeth and makes him wince. He just seems to want to watch her head move backwards and forwards on his cock, he keeps eye contact at all times, and rests both hands on either side of her head, although he doesn't try to push himself in and lets her go at her own pace. Sometimes she gets too enthusiastic and she swallows him down so far she nearly gags, but this just makes him harder and the longer she spends on her knees, the more of his come she tastes.

She helps him fuck her mouth, and she is so aroused by what she is doing, and by his wordless, helpless reaction to it that she removes one hand from his body to grind it on the front of her trousers, hoping he won't notice. His face turns scarlet, his mouth opens and he gives a long, low groan as his control breaks and with a powerful surge he thrusts forward at last, hitting the back of her throat and filling her mouth with a thick, salty tasting liquid. Her throat closes instinctively and she jerks backwards, but he hasn't finished, and gouts of white spill down her chin and over her chest.

'Sorry,' he apologises, staggering away. 'Sorry.'

There is quite a lot of come in her mouth and it takes a bit of an effort to swallow it but she regains her feet once it's gone and tries to wipe the worst of the overspill from her chin with the corner of her ruined shirt. Ben is adjusting his own clothing, pulling up his trousers and yanking down his tunic, but he hasn't escaped unscathed, splashes of residue gleaming on the cloth. He looks… wrecked. His forehead is sweaty, his hair is sticking to his temples and his eyes are slightly unfocused. There is an uncharacteristic flush on his face and his lower lip is red and sore where he appears to have been biting it. His chest heaves as fast as if he has just finished a sprint.

Rey is aware that she must be similarly dishevelled but she makes no effort to tidy her appearance. The First Order believe her to be little more than a glorified prostitute and Ben is very keen that it stays that way.

'You look exceedingly beautiful,' she tells him, and he gives her a crooked grin. Then she thumbs the door control and heads out into the corridor with her head held high. Two Sith troopers fall into step behind her.

She threads through the First Order High Command with her shirt lashed together with the Supreme Leader's belt, her hair a mess where his hands have been through it, love bites on her neck, her mouth red from hard use. She doesn't care. She is looking forward to what he is planning on doing tonight.


	17. Chapter 17

She needs a shower when she gets back to her quarters, as well as a thorough brush of her teeth and she dumps the ruined clothes down the garbage chute, although she has trouble selecting replacements. She stands naked in front of the storage unit in the bedroom, flicking through her meagre wardrobe, none of which seems appropriate for the evening to come. Clothing has always been functional for her, needing only to be comfortable and clean but for once she wishes she had something more special to wear. She will not be leaving her rooms, the Sith troopers now stationed outside the door will make sure of that, and she is probably destined to spend much of the evening wearing nothing at all, but this feels like a moment which should be marked somehow.

She turns away, frustrated and jumps when the ceiling speaker bursts into life.

'Do you always take this long getting dressed or is it just for my benefit?' He has that suggestive tease in his voice again.

'Are you spying on me?'

'I'm not spying,' he says. 'I missed you.'

She glares suspiciously at the roof but there is nothing other than honesty in his tone now. 'I saw you less than two hours ago.'

'Feels like longer,' he replies. 'I sent you something to read.'

'Will you be home soon?'

'Are you getting impatient, little consort?' Warmth curls through his words, the sort of warmth that reminds her of the last time he called her that, of fingers in the dark and the bob of a black-haired head.

She looks up, unsure of his vantage point and tells him the truth. 'Yes.'

'Then I'll be home as soon as I can.'

She grabs a robe from the cupboard, a floor length, thin black number which looked completely different in the First Order stores catalogue and goes into the central living space to see what is on the screen. Rather unromantically, he has sent her his bloodtest results, and she is surprised that he has found time in his day to get this done, and so quickly after she sent hers to him. The results demonstrate that his DNA is a perfect match for Kylo Ren, he is clear of any transmittable disease, and, presumably due to the expensive medical care he has received at some point in his past, is also immune to any other disease for which a test exists. But he has gone further, and has had more than just his blood analysed, since other samples were readily to hand. Not only does the report detail the extent of his virility in both volume, shape and motility, but his genome has been mapped with hers and she has a breakdown of the possible genetic makeup of their children down to height, weight, eye colour and potential for Force sensitivity, as expressed by midichlorian count, which she has to look up in the Jedi texts. She thinks this is probably his idea of a joke.

Anticipating his return she orders dinner, is disappointed when it has cooled into a stodge and he has still not arrived, and then wanders around the suite aimlessly, killing time. She can't settle to the Jedi texts, so instead she folds herself onto the sofa in the recreation room and flicks on the screen. Since these are the Supreme Leader's quarters it is not the propaganda news channel which is showing, but a selection of less restrictive programming, and she changes the channels one by one, searching for anything which might kill the hours she has to wait. She has never been too fond of this type of entertainment, because watching people pretend to be something they are not has always seemed too much like deception, but now she finds the far fetched stories and bizarre plots take her mind off the boredom.

She jerks awake, and for a second she doesn't know where she is. The screen she was watching is now showing grey static and there is a blanket over the sofa on which she lies, but the lights in the white room outside are still on through the open doorway and she follows them back into the lounge. It feels like the early hours of the morning, and nothing in the apartment has changed, except for the sound of snoring.

Ben is lying full length in the bed, flat out on his stomach with his clothes spread across the floor where they have been dropped. She leaves the main door open so she doesn't have to turn on the bedroom light and picks her way across the room, discarding her robe and slipping between the sheets next to him. She runs a hand down his back, tracing out the contours of his spine, learning the massive uplands of his shoulders and the smooth terrain of his waist. He stirs, turns his cheek to the mattress, thrusts out an arm to circle her hips, and mutters something unintelligible as she continues to massage his back. He doesn't actually open his eyes until she moves her hand in a long, slow glide, all the way down and over his naked backside, running her palm across the soft skin, squeezing a little when she can't resist it any more.

He wakes with a faint smile, blinks a couple of times and simply shifts over a few feet to cover her. It is as easy as that. One minute she is in charge, lying next to him as an independent, fully functional human being with her own agency and decision making skills, and the next she is entwined with a heavy male body, her arms around his neck, his hands beneath her back, his hips between her legs and she is part of something more. They are both naked, but this no longer seems unusual; he has climaxed in her mouth, she has come to the rhythm of his tongue and this more intimate connection is a natural progression.

She opens her mouth, wraps her calves around his knees as she spreads her legs to accommodate the width of his pelvis. This is how it will be the first time, this is how she wants it, he will give, and she will receive, until she is more certain of what she is doing and can take charge herself. He isn't inside her, and he isn't as hard as he was this afternoon, but the more he kisses her, the firmer he gets. His cock rubs against the sensitive spot he has fingered and kissed and as she remembers both of those occasions the friction of flesh against flesh is smoothed; she grows damp and he provides a spurt of wetness. It is slow, just a repeating phrase of push and slide between her legs, the rock of her hips as she matches his tempo, the dance of tongues where their faces meet.

He stops kissing her mouth and shifts his attention to her forehead, cheeks, the lobe of her ear, peppering her skin with the softness of his lips and their bodies continue to move together, interlocked in a delicate pattern of forwards and backwards, rub and relax. There are no thrusting fingers here, no gagging suction, this is closeness, and warmth and they have all the time they need.

The kisses too stop eventually and then he simply looks down at her, his face outlined in the dim light from the hallway, and he supports his weight on his arms as his angle changes slightly. He sinks inside her gradually, his passage eased by the slick lubrication her body provides, while she spreads her legs further apart and gazes back. It is a strange sensation, being filled like this, stretched wide by another person, feeling herself penetrated little by little, as every time she thinks he has entered her fully, his hips flex and she takes a bit more. The pressure inside her grows, his cock is a tight fit to begin with, but the feeling quickly ratchets upwards into an exquisite level of tension as he sheathes half his length inside her body and by the time he has packed her full she is taut to breaking point. This is nothing like being fucked by his fingers, this is all weight and heat, rigid, unyielding flesh grinding into a place too small to contain it.

His eyes search hers anxiously, but she isn't afraid. After spending such a long time getting in, he pulls out again, and then she has to adapt to his size all over again but more quickly, and with a sting of pleasure that comes from the delicate spot inside her his fingers discovered this morning. He pulls out, rushes forward and she is starting to get used to this now, the fierce ram of his cock between her legs, the struggle to contain him, the tight clench and the glorious strain when he pushes home, the sudden emptiness when he withdraws. When he is outside she aches to have him back in, and when he is inside she aches with hard, hot joy as he thrusts deep.

He is breathing loudly with effort and she is aware that she is sweating as she shifts beneath his hips, pounded into the bed with the force of every stroke, although he is not deliberately rough, it is just that there is so much of him to take and he is going slowly, making each insertion count. Her climax rises, stoked by the steady prod of his cock as it crams between her spread legs and everything is so tight she feels like she will burst from the overload of sensation.

His eyes hold hers. He hasn't looked away since he pushed in the first time but now he shrugs her right arm from around his neck with a jerk of one shoulder and when her hand flops back onto the sheets he adjusts his position, locking his fingers through hers and squeezing them. She can't tell how far away he is from orgasm, but his face is flushed and his lips are compressed so hard he may well be biting them. His hips jerk forward more quickly now, drawing a gasp and a shudder as her peak approaches and she grips his hand, encouraging him on. He slams into her cunt three times, four, with such an effort that it makes her whole body shake and then she is spasming around him, climaxing on his cock as he lets out a groan and follows her over the edge, releasing his pleasure into her with one last thrust.

This is what it means to be a dyad, she thinks, while he is still buried inside her and she is watching his face change with the rictus of orgasm. This is two that are one, this act, not the union of the Force but this more earthy, basic joining and she feels closer to him in this moment than she has done since they stood together on Exegol. He pulls out as soon as he is finished and Rey lies on the bed, throbbing gently and she does something then she has not done in a week or more. She opens the bond. She wants to be as close to him as she possibly can; she has already opened her legs, now she opens her mind as well. She reaches for him, stretches out her awareness into the Force for that singular note of harmony, the shared resonance she should hear back.

There is nothing. Last time she felt for this connection it was cold and empty but although that chill has lessened, Ben is quite obviously not there. He is also lying next to her, his heartbeat loud in the silent bedroom, chest rising and falling as he recovers. She doesn't understand it. Why doesn't he respond? Why can't he hear?

'Do you feel anything?' she asks, suddenly desperate.

He takes a sharp breath, and rolls onto his side so that he can see her face. 'Do I feel anything?' He sounds insulted. 'Of course I feel something. Don't you?'

'In the Force. Do you feel anything in the Force? Before you died, you and I had a connection. We could talk to each other across long distances, pass things to each other although we weren't in the same room. I'm trying to make it work now but I feel like it's broken.'

'I don't feel anything in the Force,' he muses after a minute's concentration. 'But I don't remember that connection, I don't remember how it works. I don't know how to switch it on.'

That must be it, she thinks, letting the access fade, he feels it but he doesn't recognise it for what it is. He doesn't respond because he doesn't know how.

'Is it important?' he asks, reaching out one hand to tuck a strand of sweaty hair behind her ear. 'You and I have a connection which has nothing to do with the Force. I can feel that.'

She rolls over to face him, wincing as the first protests spread through her lower half. 'What do you feel?'

He frowns. 'I feel like I've just hurt you. You're too little, consort.'

'And you're too big.'

He doesn't take that as a complaint and gives her a wide grin. 'We were made for each other.' The grin fades quickly. 'But you need to talk to me more. I can't tell if I'm being too rough or if there's something else you'd rather I do. I'm not a mindreader.'

'You are,' she breathes. 'You are. That's what the bond between us does, it makes you able to read my mind. Try it now, I won't resist.' This is the easiest way to re-establish the connection, she just needs to get him to enter her mind in the same way he entered her body and they will be joined again. She wants this as badly as she wanted him inside her a moment ago.

'You said only a monster reads minds without consent.'

'You have my consent, to this and anything else you want to do. Try it now.'

He looks dubious. 'This connection would let you read my mind as well, wouldn't it? I'm not sure that's a very good idea.'

'Why – what do you have to hide?'

He just smiles at her. 'How much time I spend thinking about you, for one thing. Are you hurt? You look like you're in pain.'

She is, but it isn't that sort of pain. Although he is physically present, and they have done more together now than they ever have before, she still feels there is something missing. This is good, but it could be better. She itches to leap into his consciousness, to force his mind open and re-establish the bond but she knows that would make her no better than Kylo Ren, and Ben has already compared her to his dark alter-ego one too many times.

She sighs, lets the thought go. 'That was my first time. I'm not in pain, just a bit tender.'

'I can help you with that.' His eyes flicker shut and his hand moves towards her groin and for a moment she thinks he is planning on touching her again. She isn't averse to that, despite the soreness, but his fingers do not dip low enough and she realises he has something else in mind.

She smacks his hand away. 'No! Don't do that. You don't have my consent for that. Anything else, but not that.'

He blinks in surprise. 'I'm just trying to heal you. What's the problem?'

This is how he died. She will not let him put himself in danger like that again, not for her. He will never have another opportunity to make an enormous gesture of noble self sacrifice as long as she is conscious, and able to stop it. She won't lose him like that again.

'I know what you're doing. Don't heal me. Ever,' she snaps.

He stares at her in puzzlement, but he backs off, and then that glint is back in his eye. 'In that case, would you like me to kiss it better?'

Something in her stomach winds tight, and the anger is chased away. She blushes, but she nods. 'Very much.'

It takes an inordinate amount of time to get his tongue back where it belongs, because he takes far too long working his way down her body for her liking. He spends an age covering every available part of her breasts with saliva, sucking at her nipples until they are so sensitive he only has to breathe on them to make them ache and he seems fascinated by the curve of her stomach, writing his name on it over and over again. She has forgotten that she was ever sore by the time he has finally taken up the right position between her legs and she arches her hips into his face, desperate to feel the lash of his tongue.

'Like this, Master Skywalker?' he asks, grazing the tip of it across her clitoris lazily, and much too gently, the smug look on his face telling her that he is torturing her on purpose.

She bends, winds her fingers into his hair, and yanks his head forward. 'Shut up, Lunkas,' she growls.

He only gives her a few minutes of bliss though before he rolls onto his back and looks up at her expectantly. There is a flicker of concern as she sees the extent of what is waiting for her but she throws her leg over him, braces her hands on his chest and tries to gingerly lower herself into the right position. He takes a firm grip on her left hip and with his other hand briskly massages the nub of flesh between her legs that hasn't had enough attention and while she is distracted by that, he pulls her down and impales her again. In this position, he feels huge. Dimly, she wonders whether this is because no other man has been inside her and she has no basis for comparison, but her capacity for rational thought is being eroded by the stretch of her cunt and the urgent rubbing he is giving her clitoris.

'Hold still,' he murmurs. 'This may hurt a bit.'

He surges upwards and she straightens with a cry, because this is deeper than before and she is stuffed so full of cock she may explode. But his finger is a blur and the pleasure it brings is intense, clamping her internal walls around his massive intrusion and she thinks she may fly apart then, except that he stops moving inside her and the tension swiftly diminishes. Tentatively, she flexes her thigh muscles and raises up off him, but the sensation she is chasing doesn't return until she drops hesitantly back down and gloves him again.

He catches her attention, releasing her hip and sliding his free hand behind his head, although his other hand is still working her towards climax. The message is clear – it is over to her now.

Slowly at first, and then with increasing ardour, she fucks herself on his cock, riding it with her hands rigid on his chest and her head down, her breasts rippling with every bounce of her hips. He doesn't move, waiting patiently while her confidence increases and the discomfort fades to a distant memory. She takes everything he has and wants more, biting her lip against the immense pressure inside as the blast of a two pronged orgasm rips through her at last. She collapses bonelessly onto his chest and he manoeuvres her onto her back, driving into her in a couple of short, sharp jabs and delivering his load deep into her core with a muted cry.

She falls asleep in his arms.


	18. Chapter 18

When she wakes Ben is no longer beside her and the suite has a sense of absence to it that means he has already left for whatever strategy meeting he has scheduled today. Maybe he will be inspecting troops, or maybe he will be planning an assault on a rebel base somewhere – either way she cannot go with him, and he is getting back to their rooms so late at night that she doesn't have a chance to talk to him about any of it. Perhaps this is deliberate, but Rey is chafing at the confinement, and she resents the fact that he is out there somewhere protecting both of them, keeping her in ignorance of what he is doing so that she can claim plausible deniability should she need to later.

Rey is no longer sure she even wants to go back to the Resistance. She needs to see the First Order broken, and she will not give up the Jedi way, although she may stray from it occasionally, but she is questioning whether she needs to be part of the Resistance to achieve either of those things. Perhaps she can bring down her enemies just by sending the intelligence he is collecting to the rebels, and then she and Ben can disappear into the uncharted wilds of the galaxy and live a life free from the shadow of the past. He is already living that life – he still doesn't remember who he was, and she has tried everything she can think of to encourage him. She doesn't hold out much hope that a visit to Exegol will jog those recollections back into his head, but it is worth a try, in the absence of any other ideas. Perhaps when he has exhausted this plan they will be free to escape both sides of the war and start a new life on a distant planet.

After last night, she knows that she will settle. Even if he doesn't get his memories back, even if he remains as only the shell of the man he once was, there is still enough about him to make her want to settle for him, to spend the rest of her life getting to know the man he is now.

She lazes in bed because there is no incentive to get up. She has nowhere to go, and nothing to do. The library interface will not operate without credentials, and nor will any of the monitors, so her only outlet is exercise, or watching trashy dramas. This is the life of a consort. Isolation, boredom and sex. At least the last part is fulfilling.

She drags herself into the fresher and spends longer than she needs to removing the residue of last night, sluicing the distinctive smell from her thighs, washing her hair. Then she dresses in the exercise garb she ordered from the stores and goes for a run in the recreation room. Then she has another shower. She has never been so clean. She dresses in her usual white outfit and runs through a couple of training drills with her lightsaber, although the space is restricted and she is just keeping her hand in, rather than testing herself. She exchanges her weapon for her staff and starts all over again. Then, because she is slightly sweaty, she has another shower. She stands in front of the mirror afterwards and wonders what to do. She has only whiled away the morning, Ben is unlikely to be back until late into the night and she has absolutely no idea how she is going to get through the rest of the day.

She jemmies the door of the suite open again and sticks her head into the corridor. The Sith troopers turn immediately, both of them raising their weapons.

'Could you tell the Supreme Leader I expect to see him for lunch?' she asks brightly.

One of them makes a rude sound through his helmet. 'Ren is too busy to be bothered with you at the moment.'

She thinks about that for a second, wondering if it is true. 'Then could you tell him that I expect to see him for dinner.' Her tone is slightly less question, slightly more command.

The other trooper shakes his head. 'We have orders not to disturb him. I'm sure he'll be back when he's got nothing better to do.'

Rey considers that too. 'Tell the Supreme Leader that I require his services.'

The first trooper shifts his rifle. 'You can have my services instead if you're that desperate.'

His compatriot sniggers. 'I hear Ren says she's very good on her knees.'

Rey blushes and slams the door shut. She's had all she can stand of this place. She's not prepared to live like this another day, sidelined and marginalised, imprisoned and mocked. She is not a consort, a wife or a concubine, she is no better than Candice from the _Long Goodnight_, kept to service the pleasure of her master. Maybe that is how Ben sees her now, maybe that is why he left so early this morning without so much as waking her up. Maybe that is what he wants. She wants out. Ben needs to know. The guards are not willing to contact him and she can't access the comms systems to do any more than order supplies so she has no formal way to open a conversation. Trapped in her rooms, she must get him to notice her. Luckily, she knows exactly how to accomplish that.

She goes back into the bedroom and stares at the ceiling. 'Are you spying again? I want to get out of here. You need to sort out a way to get us off this ship or I'm going to break out myself.'

There is no response. He might not even be on the ship, for all she knows. He may not be within broadcast range. She waves her arms. 'Hello? Anyone there? I need to leave. I hate it here.'

Still no reply from the voice in the ceiling. She knows he doesn't need to be alone to answer her. Maybe he is just too busy to be bothered with her at the moment, maybe he's got better things to do.

She takes the saber from her hip and switches it on. 'I'm doing it now, I'm breaking out. Everyone on board is going to die. I'm going beserk with anger. You'd better come and stop me.' She runs from the room and stops immediately outside. There is still no answer.

She flops onto the bed, flips off the weapon and throws it onto the covers. This is a new lifetime low. The last Jedi, caged and used as a sex slave. That gives her an idea. It is not a very nice idea, or an idea worthy of the last Jedi, but if this is the role she has chosen, then she may as well play it, for the rest of the day, at least.

She begins by discarding the winding white cloth she wears more out of habit now than utility, and then throws the white vest she has on underneath on the same chair, and follows it with her sole remaining stretchy breastband. She decides to leave her sleeves in place, and the leather binding on her arm and she unbuckles her belt so that she can take off her trousers and underwear. She is nearly naked, but the effect is a little too much, so she straps the belt back on, reasoning that any man who goes around dressed in leather gloves probably enjoys the frisson of that material against his skin. She also retains her boots, and she digs out her bag from the back of the cupboard and places that over one shoulder, with the leather strap running between her bare breasts. The effect in the mirror is of a woman who has gotten up in the morning and remembered everything but her clothes. She thinks this will have the desired impact.

She lies down on the bed, flat on her back, fixes the ceiling with a determined stare and opens proceedings by toying with her nipples. This does not feel the same as when he does it, and in fact, without that sense of wanton delight she gets seeing her breasts in his mouth this experience is a pale imitation of the real thing, but the point is to get his attention. Wherever he is, whatever he is doing, there is no way he is going to ignore this. She waits until she has achieved the right state of perky erectness and then slips her fingers towards her crotch. She puts one foot up on the bed and spreads her legs to give him a better view, and then slides her hand between her thighs and begins to masturbate. This also does not feel the same as when he does it, because he is usually much more assertive with his fingers, or is using his tongue, but she can take her time with her body, she knows it better than he does, she knows how to draw this out. She touches herself slowly, giving the ceiling the full benefit of every gasp and moan and she writhes seductively across the mattress, slowing down when she starts to get close, maximising the time he has to arrive.

From somewhere in the distance she hears the hiss of the suite door opening, and then the heavy tramp of booted feet hurrying across the lounge, moving at a pace which is very nearly a run. He bursts into the bedroom, already de-masked, his face red, the tip of one of his gloves between his teeth as he struggles to haul it off.

'I was in the middle of a troop inspection,' he says, the words tumbling over themselves. 'I came as soon as I could, once I realised it was an emergency.'

She removes her finger from a clitoris which is noticeably engorged and glistening and slowly, ever so slowly, maintaining eye contact all the time, slides it into her mouth. 'I required your services,' she croons in her very best consort-like manner. 'But the guards refused to call you, and offered me their assistance instead.'

He does his best to close his mouth, and his face darkens. 'I'll deal with them later. First, I'll deal with you.' He strides across the room and fumbles with his tunic, starting the lengthy process of disrobing.

She shakes her head, reaches out and climbs up his body, using the opportunity to slip her hand over the front of his trousers, which are nearly at bursting point. 'Leave it on,' her voice drips with her best attempt at seduction. 'Leave it all on.'

He frowns at her dubiously, glances at his hands. 'Even the leather?'

'Especially the leather.' She picks up his hand, folds everything down into his palm apart from his first two fingers, and puts them between her legs.

The feeling is so extreme she bites her lip. The material is cold and rough and it has seams, explicit little bits of extra friction which send black swirling lights across her vision when he rubs. He doesn't hold back, he goes at her fast and hard and she flings her arms around his neck because her legs are trembling too much to hold her up as she orgasms in a matter of seconds. He hisses out an expletive, put his hands under her backside, picks her up and carries her across the room until her back bashes into the wall. He is thrusting into her before she has got the hang of the position so she wraps her legs around his waist and clings on, letting him take her as roughly as he wants to. He comes nearly as quickly as she did, burying his face in her shoulder as his cock empties inside her.

'We're leaving tomorrow,' she tells him. 'Get us a ship and get us out of here before I do it myself.'

He pulls his head back, but he doesn't move anything else, although she can feel him softening between her legs. 'Is that a threat?'

'Absolutely. I don't want to be your consort any more. Get me out of here, or you'll never be inside me again.'

He slithers out and lowers her carefully to the floor, and his gaze rakes her from head to toe, paying particular attention to the leather straps, and the boots and his cock twitches, before he stuffs it away. 'Understood,' he says. Then his heels click together and he is gone.

Rey spends the rest of the day packing and waiting. Ben returns to their quarters late at night, too tired to do more than murmur a single word, 'Jinata,' before he collapses into sleep.

She doesn't wake him the next morning, and she is sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed when he finally stirs. He looks adorable in the mornings, she thinks, all blurry around the edges with his hair mussed and his mouth plump and soft. He reaches for her with a welcoming arm but she restrains the urge to kiss him and pins him with an icy glare instead.

'You were serious when you said 'never' weren't you?' he asks, diverting his arm to rake through his hair.

'I'm sick of being your sex slave. I'm not Candice. How are we getting out of here?'

His eyes open very wide. 'I've treated you with nothing but respect. Or I've tried to, anyway.'

She narrows her eyes at him. 'And yet I'm still locked in your bedroom. How are we getting out?'

He pulls up the covers over his waist. 'The _Obdurate_ is on its way to the Jinata system. We're stopping at a planet called… well… it's a planet, I daresay you're not interested in finding out anything else about it. I'm undertaking an independent inspection of the stormtrooper training facility. I'll be flying down to the planet on the Supreme Leader's command shuttle. It's an _Upsilon_ class shuttle built by Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems with SJFS 200a sublight ion engines and hyperdrive capability. It measures…' he catches her expression and stops short.

'I've been on it before,' she says. 'So have you.'

He pulls a face. 'It has a crew of two pilots, and I'll also be accompanied by four Sith troopers. Everyone else is staying here.'

'What about me?'

'You're also staying here. The High Command trust me now but they still don't trust you, which means you need to escape this room, and get to the shuttle without being seen. I disciplined the guards outside the door so they won't dare come in and disturb you, but there's really only one way you can go.'

He reaches out for the cabinet beside the bed and retrieves a datapad, which broadcasts an image of the _Obdurate_'s schematics into the air. He taps a few commands and a route appears outlined in red, which leads from the flashing box with the X through various suspiciously long, straight spaces into a much wider area on the same level as the hangar bay.

Rey squints at the map, reading the labels on the rooms, and then turns a glare on Ben. 'You want me to go down the garbage chute.'

'It's the only way,' he waves the pad defensively. 'You ordered me to come up with a plan at short notice and that's the best I can do.'

'Having me on hands and knees, crawling through miles of rubbish is the best you can do?'

'You could always stay locked in my bedroom,' he offers.

She gives him a look that would melt durasteel. He gazes back innocently. 'What's the rest of the plan? Is there any more, or was that it?'

'The troopers will sense you as soon as they board the shuttle, so you'll have to take them out while I deal with the pilots and take off. We'll head for the planet and at the last minute I'll engage the hyperdrive. I'll turn off the hyperspace tracking on the _Obdurate_ before we leave, which will buy us a few moments before they realise and switch it back on again, and then we'll need to take an indirect route to Exegol, ditching the shuttle as soon as we can.'

It doesn't sound like a very good plan, but it is at least a plan, and she is at the point where she will do anything that gets her out of this gilded prison for a while.

'How long do I have to get to the shuttle?'

'About three hours.' He stands and stretches, but she ignores the wide expanse of naked chest and the tight fitting black shorts. 'Take only what you can carry in a small waterproof bag. I should leave in about an hour, if I were you. There are miles and miles of garbage to get through, I checked last night.'

'Waterproof?' she queries.

He stands in the door of the fresher, and it looks a lot like he is trying not to smile. 'You're crawling through garbage, you may get slightly…wet.'

He is gone before she can throw something at him and he leaves the suite without any further discussion. She takes the Jedi texts, his old clothes, her lightsaber and wraps them all up tight in preparation for the journey. Then she starts taking apart the top of the garbage disposal.

It is only then that she realises she is being watched. A slight noise from behind her gives them away and she spins, wrench still in hand to find two Sith troopers standing in her bedroom, rifles locked and primed. She gestures at the pried open metal at the top of the chute, and the housing spread all over the floor. 'It was broken,' she explains, but it doesn't sound convincing.

One of the troopers waves his blaster. 'You're coming with us,' he says.


	19. Chapter 19

It is over. Something has gone wrong and Ben's plan has been discovered, or maybe worse than that, Ben himself has been discovered and his masquerade as Kylo Ren has come to an abrupt end. He'd told her that the guards wouldn't dare enter her chambers so their presence means that either the discipline he mentioned wasn't as effective as he'd thought, or the soldiers are no longer afraid of him. She prepares to call her lightsaber and fight her way out, although she knows she is far from the hangar bay and making it to a ship will be difficult.

Before she can throw out her hand one of the troopers kicks something on the floor at her. 'Supreme Leader's orders.'

She glances down involuntarily and spots a large box, smooth and dark and bearing no indication of its contents and she looks back at them uncertainly. It may well be a bomb, or some kind of trap, and she doesn't want to open it. The trooper on the left levels his weapon at her. 'Supreme Leader's orders,' he repeats.

'What were his orders?' Rey asks, reassured that he is still giving orders, at least.

'Deliver that, and wait outside,' the second trooper says, nudging his comrade. The other red suited man nods and they both march smartly out of the room.

Rey and her box are left alone. She grabs a piece of garbage disposal housing, stands well away and lifts the lid with the makeshift lever. Nothing explodes, and she isn't overcome by anything nasty. The box is full, but all she can see inside is boots. Confused, she stirs the contents roughly with her metal pole and grey fabric surfaces, along with a flash of red and something sparkly in the bottom. She reaches in and picks out the boots, which are shiny black leather and will finish somewhere above her knee if she puts them on. Setting them aside, she pulls out some twisted grey material, which resolves itself into a long cloak and a further rummage brings up a bundle of soft fabric in a matching shade.

It is a dress. Rey has never been a dress sort of person, and clothes have only ever needed to be practical, comfortable and clean for her to be happy, but now she is the proud owner of a grey dress, the front of which ends just below her knees while the skirt continues on into a full train around the back. The dress has no sleeves, but there is another piece of cloth tucked into one of the armholes and when she retrieves it she sees that it is one of two arm wraps like the ones she usually wears, although these versions are also grey. It is not the grey that catches the eye however, but the splash of red which makes up the bodice. Rey isn't exactly sure what a bodice is, but this is almost certainly one, because it is attached to the skirt and it will cover her front, although, looking at the way the silky textile drapes in folds which seem daringly low, she suspects it will be rather more revealing than she is used to.

She isn't sure what to make of it. Apparently, this costume has arrived by order of the Supreme Leader, who was ordering her to climb through miles of stinking garbage not that long ago and she's not sure what he wants her to do. She looks towards the ceiling, and he answers immediately.

'Put it on,' he says.

She frowns at the disembodied voice. 'Are we still escaping?'

'Put it on,' he repeats. 'Change of plan.'

It seems like quite a considerable change of plan, but she complies with his instructions nonetheless. She stuffs her usual white outfit into her bag once she is finished and examines the outcome critically in the bedroom mirror. Then she wriggles out of the dingy breastband and stuffs that away too. The dress is tight at the waist and the back of the bodice fits with nothing to spare, but the front is far too loose, the red folds draping far enough down between her breasts to reveal the top of her stomach, an almost indecent exposure of flesh with which she does not feel comfortable. The skirt swishes across the floor, her new boots finishing well above the hem so that her bare legs are not visible and the cloak is the right length; it whispers as she walks.

The box has not yet given up all its secrets however, because there is more black leather in the bottom, which consists of a wide leather belt from which she suspends her lightsaber. There is also a crown. It takes her a while to realise what it is, because the sight is so unfamiliar. It is quite plain, just a circlet of silver with a couple of gleaming stones set into the band and she lifts it out reverently, turning it while the jewels catch the light.

She glances up at the ceiling again, but he says nothing, and she settles the crown on her head, gazing dubiously at herself in the mirror. The woman looking back is not a scavenger from Jakku, or a Jedi knight, she is something else entirely, something she was born to be. She is royalty.

She sweeps from the chamber, tossing her pack at one of the guards and strides down the corridor, her cloak swirling at her heels. It is no surprise to find the Supreme Leader waiting by the repulsorlift, flanked by as many of the High Command as will fit into the restricted space.

'Here is my consort now,' he booms, the speaker in his mask turned up to full volume. 'Empress.' He bends into a low bow and holds out his arm as the doors to the lift open.

She rests her hand lightly on his sleeve and allows him to lead her inside. 'What are you doing?' she whispers out of the corner of her mouth.

'Showing everyone who is really in charge.' He makes no attempt to moderate his volume.

The doors to the lift close and seal them inside, momentarily free of attendants. She drops his arm and opens her mouth to ask a question, something pertinent about what he thinks he is playing at, but the mask is already turning in her direction. Before she quite realises what is happening his fingers walk across the centre of her chest, underneath the gauzy red fabric and tweak her nipple. His gloves are cold and his hand really shouldn't be where it is, he shouldn't be touching her so intimately in public, where anyone could stop the lift and see what she is letting him do, this is wrong, so very wrong, particularly since he is dressed as Kylo Ren and has that mask over his face. She doesn't want him like this, she has never been attracted to the monster he was before, but her breathing is fast and shallow, her cheeks are red and she is dripping for him.

The mask tilts slightly, and he says, 'Never?'

She pushes him off, stalks to the front of the lift and is ready when the door opens on the hangar bay. He has arranged for an honour guard. The massive space is filled with lines and lines of troops, flanking a central approach to the shuttle which waits for her in the centre. As she sweeps out among them with Ben at her back, the leaders of each company come to attention, their arms raise, and a salute ripples around the hall. She isn't really an empress, and rejected the opportunity when it came her way, but in this moment she understands what it would be like, the power it would bring, the respect she could command. It is respect which has been sadly lacking during her sojourn on this ship.

'Maybe later,' she murmurs.

They make it as far as the ship and Ben heads straight for the cockpit, taking a seat directly behind the pilots. 'Set course for Vardos,' he orders, and nods to Rey.

Rey turns to the main passenger cabin, in which their red escort is already waiting. These soldiers do not demonstrate the compliance shown by their compatriots outside, and although their faces are covered, she senses their suspicion. They do not drop their blaster rifles and or relax their positions as she takes a seat and buckles in while the shuttle commences its ignition sequence and powers out of the _Obdurate_.

A few minutes pass and then there is a muffled thud, which Rey takes as a signal. A few swift flicks of her lightsaber and it is all over, and she enters the cockpit to find the two black clad pilots slumped on the floor, still breathing but unconscious.

Ben is busy in the pilot's chair, and she hopes he has skipped the pre-flight checks and is about to demonstrate something of his old skill. 'Can you find something to tie them up with?' he asks, not looking round.

She sighs, and levitates both men across the floor in the direction of the airlock, where the Sith troopers are also currently residing, although they will not require restraining ever again. Vardos is looming large in the viewscreen when she returns from her task and she drops into the co-pilot's chair frowning. 'Haven't you left it a bit late to make the jump?'

'No,' he pushes buttons and the stars blur into lines outside the window. 'The shuttle has a tracking beacon, find it and disable it,' he orders, concentrating on programming something into the navcomp.

'Yes, Supreme Leader.'

He spares her a quick look to gauge the level of snark in her tone and then turns back to his task while she removes any trace of the First Order from the shuttle's external identity – scans will show it as a small trading vessel unless someone sees and recognises it with the naked eye. She shuts down the beacon and changes the call-sign but she isn't sure whether or not this will hide them from the Order's hyperspace tracking technology once it is operational again. They may have installed a programme she is not able to locate, they may pick up the trail in a matter of minutes.

'Did you appreciate the change of plan, Empress?' he asks.

'Wasn't that taking rather a risk, Supreme Leader? After all, you've confined me to quarters for days, what made you decide to parade me around the ship?' She lays in a lightspeed skipping programme, plucking co-ordinates out of the air at random and deploys it immediately.

He removes his hands from the controls once he spots the change of course and begins tinkering with the shields, attempting to boost the power in case the shuttle emerges from one of her jumps into the middle of something dangerous. 'I came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter what the High Command thought of you, since you'd decided we were leaving anyway.'

'Didn't you want to leave?' They emerge from one of her jumps into the middle of something dangerous and he takes manual control to steer through the asteroid field into which they have strayed.

'I hadn't finished doing everything I wanted to do. But you're the empress, Empress. Impulsive and volatile and really, really irritating. I dare not disobey your orders, even when they make no sense. Even when you haven't thought them through, even when you just decide we have to leave for no good reason, and I know that if I don't do exactly as you say you'll start breaking things.' He navigates them out of peril and his piloting is so expert that she is begrudgingly impressed.

'I didn't want to be there in the first place. Running back to the First Order and becoming Kylo Ren was your idea, not mine. You should have had an exit strategy. Or any strategy at all would have been an improvement. We'd still be stuck there now if it wasn't for me. Are you ever going to take that mask off, by the way?'

'Not when you seem to like it so much.'

'What is that supposed to mean?' Her voice has a whiplash edge but he doesn't flinch or even bother to answer, until they skip again and the shuttle is barrelling through a series of high rise buildings on a ecumenopolis somewhere and he is desperately trying to pull it up. Since they are barely skimming the tops of the densely packed towers she takes the opportunity to vent the airlock, which has the effect of dumping the red waste and the two still living pilots somewhere they won't be noticed for a while, and catapulting the shuttle upwards.

'It means, I've noticed.' Hyperspace blurs the darkness outside the window as they jump again. 'Before I put this on you were interested, but not committed. The minute I became Kylo Ren you couldn't keep your hands off me.'

She is going to break something. It may well be him. The ship emerges in the middle of an electrical storm and a bolt of blue lances out of the darkness and hits it. The power goes down immediately, and Rey can barely see her hand in front of her face until she ignites her saber and swarms underneath the control panel to locate the circuit breaker.

'I was always committed,' she grates out, kicking the bottom off the console in lieu of his head. 'From before you can remember. You were the one who wasn't sure.'

He waits until she flips the breaker, powers up the ship and primes the hyperdrive, then delays a scant few seconds before sending them spinning off again. 'I was always sure. I was sure from the first time we met, from when you came into my cell and looked at me like you'd found some kind of treasure. But I was also sure you belonged to someone else.' He stabs at a button. 'How could you say I've treated you like a slave? You've always been an empress to me.'

'Impulsive, volatile and really, really irritating?'

'The woman who rules my heart.'

She shoots him a suspicious look, because this may be extreme sarcasm but the disguise he is wearing makes it impossible to be sure. The shuttle emerges into the middle of a gas cloud which blankets the ship in white and makes it impossible to see out of the viewscreen. It will also provide camouflage for a while, so Rey shuts down all non essential systems and sets the scanners to maximum, so that she can determine whether or not they have been followed. When she is done she stands and moves over to the pilot's chair.

'You were never a supreme leader to me,' she says softly. 'I never wanted you back in this.' She reaches out and feels for the bottom edge of the helmet, running her fingertips along the black metal of the base searching for whatever mechanism keeps it in place. She removes it from his head gently and, despite the time they have spent in bed, this feels like the most intimate thing she has ever done.

He studies her expression with eyes that are dark and unreadable, and he says, 'Be careful with that. I used it to record everything I did over the last few days. When it's finished loading the data to the shuttle you can send all the intelligence over to the Resistance. It should give them enough to bring down the First Order. They'll welcome you back with open arms, I imagine.'

She sets the mask on the console and steps closer, manoeuvring herself into the space between his legs as he faces the controls. His hair has been flattened by the helmet and she needs to brush her fingers through it to get it looking as it should. 'Why do you imagine I want to go back to them?'

'If you stay with me we will be hunted,' he states quietly, his expression almost one of pain. 'We will never be safe. We will never find a place to settle without fear. We will never have a home.'

He is so close to the man he was, she muses, as she looks at him and makes her decision. He flies as if he were born to it, he uses the Force, he makes a convincing Supreme Leader, and he is devoted to her, she can tell that by the way he is currently trying to convince her to leave him because he thinks it's the best thing for her. But the bond between them is now based on physical attraction and emotion rather than something more spiritual and he has not regained his memories. She wonders whether she was so drawn to him in the first place because of who he was intrinsically, or because of the struggle he was going through – was it the long lost innocence of Ben Solo she fell in love with, or the conflicted man he became?

As long as she's known him she's wanted him to be different, but now that he is back from the dead it seems ungrateful to complain that he has come back wrong, not exactly the man she had in mind. She herself is no longer the woman she was, but he is willing to put up with her sudden rages, the mood swings and impulsive decision making, such as that which led to her demanding they leave the Order as soon as possible. He is willing to accept her as she is right now, in this moment, and she should do the same. It is too late to wish for what might have been. She will be happy with him just as he is, and she will stop trying to turn him back into the man he was.

'You are my home,' she replies, abandoning his hair to run a fingertip along his jawline. 'Nothing else matters.'

He catches her hand, threads her fingers through his. 'It does,' he insists. 'I won't let you give away your future because of my past. You should be with your friends, and you should be able to go where you please, achieve whatever you want, and have a family someday, if you decide to. None of that will happen if you stay with me.'

She shakes her head. 'I'm not leaving you. We've already been separated once and I'll never let that happen again.' He draws breath to argue but she raises a finger. 'You said you didn't dare disobey my orders. I'm ordering you to shut up and kiss me.'

A faint smile brushes his mouth but it doesn't remove the concern in his eyes. She knows she hasn't heard the last of this disagreement. 'Yes, Empress.'


	20. Chapter 20

Rey is kissed a lot over the next few hours. There are quite a number of different kisses, as it turns out. The long, lingering deep ones, for example, which seem to stretch into infinity as he can't get enough of the inside of her mouth and she revels in the press and slide of his tongue. There are the little, nipping pecks he gives her when he is getting close to orgasm and his control is fraying, and then there are kisses which aren't really kisses, just exchanges of breath between open lips when they come together. Afterwards he nuzzles at her with a closed mouth and this kiss is comfort and companionship and the glow of sated desire.

There isn't a bed on the command shuttle so they have to make do with what they have. He sets the viewscreen to a mirror reflection, so that no one can see in, and she watches him as he exits the pilot's chair, takes up a position behind her and twists her head to capture her mouth. He twitches the loose red bodice away from her breasts and once they are exposed he teases them unmercifully with his gloved hands because he knows what leather does to her. He stops kissing her long enough to tug one glove off with his teeth and puts his bare fingers in her mouth instead. Then, when she has made them wet, he reaches down, pulls up the front of her skirts and slips his hand inside her underwear.

She watches him finger her into a swift climax in the mirror, a flush spreading over her cheeks, a frown of concentration between his brows. It doesn't take long, and when she is done he bends her forward over the console and takes her from behind, his hands clamped around the belt she is still wearing, his cock straining between her thighs. It is impulsive, this coupling, she is fully dressed and he is too, and at any moment they may be discovered by their enemies. The girl she was before she died would not have appreciated this, rough and ready and intense, the grip on her waist which is nearly painful, the way she has to clutch the controls to keep herself still. This is dangerous sex, illicit, badly planned and ill thought through and she shouldn't like it, but she is no longer the girl she was. Something inside her is awake, has been awake since she lost Ben on Exegol and it whispers to her from the shadows – this is who she is now, this is what she was meant to be. He comes with a grunt and a cry and she feels the hot warmth spill down her legs when he pulls out, so she yanks the dress over her head to protect it from stains while he sheds the rest of his clothes. Then he spreads his cloak on the floor and lays her down.

By the time he is thrashing through the last stages of his final orgasm she feels thoroughly used. He has had her in every position she can think of, and some he must have read about in a book. She has come more times than she can count, and her stomach, breasts and chin are carrying the residue of his multiple efforts. He is insatiable today, and every time she thinks he is exhausted he reaches for her again.

The moment he is done she clambers out of his lap, feeling his latest deposit caking her thighs and this time she makes for the fresher. The room is small, basic and it takes some considerable time to repair the damage of the last few hours and appear presentable again. She rolls her eyes at the seductive smile he gives her as she heads towards her pack to retrieve her old clothes and ignores the outstretched hand as he attempts to initiate again – she can still feel the stretch of him inside and it will take a little time before she recovers. His grin turns rueful as she dresses and he heads for the fresher in his turn.

She has already sent the intelligence transmission over to the Resistance when he comes striding back, clad in a fresh change of clothes, which are identical to the ones he was wearing before and she recalls that once again, she has neglected to pack any spare outfits for him and all he has is the contents of this ship. The black still suits him. She hasn't laid in a course and just looks at him with a question, uncertain of the next move. This would be an opportune moment to escape. The First Order has failed to track them, she has paid her debt to the Resistance and they could disappear now with a reasonable chance of success. He rakes his hand through his hair, and reaches out for the navcomp, setting a course for Exegol.

She turns her head to the window as the stars blur into hyperspace and there is a silence between them which lasts for a long time. She doesn't want to go back there. Although Ben is sitting beside her, and they are together as a functioning couple, her antipathy towards the scene of his death remains. She may be part of a couple, but she is no longer part of a dyad, and she isn't sure if that connection will ever be re-established. It isn't his fault, and she has accepted the way he is now, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't miss what she has lost and it doesn't mean she has to enjoy a repeat visit to the place they both died. He seems equally on edge, because he doesn't attempt conversation, and his hand has pushed back his hair so many times if he does it again she may chop it off – hand or hair, she hasn't decided.

She adjusts the co-ordinates slightly and the command shuttle lands itself next to the wreckage of a TIE fighter on the planet's surface. There is none of the aerial chaos which reigned last time she was here; the place has become a graveyard. The corpses of ships are everywhere. Crashed Resistance and Final Order vessels litter the surface of the planet, their bodies broken and empty - the rebels will have made sure that no organic remains have been left, but it is too early for scavengers to have moved in to pick over the rest. Exegol has no defences other than its own natural barriers and it is not being guarded by any system that Rey can detect, either in the atmosphere or on the surface and their landing appears to go unnoticed.

She is first off the shuttle and she hesitates beside the stricken TIE. This is the ship that he arrived in. This is the vessel that carried him from Kef Bir to her side and she passed it during her flight to Luke's X-wing at the end of the last battle, cramming the rush of sorrow into a small, hidden hole inside her heart. Something has landed on it during the intervening time and it is just a mangle of metal now, engines scattered into a smear of parts across the dusty floor, cockpit ripped open, vulnerable to the lash of the storms which mar the surface of the planet. Behind her, Ben exits the shuttle carrying the helmet, she hears the familiar tramp of his boots down the ramp, but there is a disconnect as she faces him, something not quite right in his features, something too relaxed about the way he moves that has never bothered her before. He takes her hand and doesn't spare a glance for the ruined body of the ship. He doesn't recognise it. It means nothing to him, just one amongst a jumble of other man-made bones, although she is inclined to mourn its passing.

He glances around, looks at her with a question in his eyes and she nods towards a cleft in the rock. Most of the overhanging monolith that made up the Emperor's lair has collapsed into the hole beneath, but Rey knows there must be a way through as the Resistance have been in and out on a number of occasions to clear the vaults of whatever secrets Palpatine might have been concealing. Sure enough, the hole in the rock is wide and rather than a yawning gap, a slew of rubble bridges the drop down to the throneroom. Marks in the rubble indicate that this path has been used regularly, gouges showing the weight of the items which have been hauled either into or out of the cavern beneath.

Ben drops her hand and heads carefully down the slope and she follows at a distance, her steps slowed by her memories of the last time she was here. This location should have no negative connotations, it was the scene of her greatest victory, and even though she lost Ben here, he is back at her side, so there is no logical reason for the sorrow she feels, the sense of tragedy which blights her recollections of the place. She doesn't want to go any further than she already has, but he stops and waits for her to lead the way and she reluctantly complies.

Past the remains of the throne and out into the wide hall with the ruined seating they go, and Rey finds each step more difficult than the last. He says nothing, content to follow until she stops just short of the place she died, not far from the pit, where the floor bears no hint of the events that unfolded here. The place is seared into her memory. This is where she was lying when she felt the rush of warmth that woke her up, the jumble of emotion pouring into her empty shell from the man with his hand on her stomach. She can feel it again now as she stands in the shadows, the torrent of energy passing from one body to another, the energy, and everything that came with it. Ben hadn't just given her his life force, he hadn't just transferred a bit of his power, he had given her everything he had, everything he was, cored himself and shoved all of it into her to fill the gap her own life had left. She hadn't wanted him to do it, hadn't asked for that kind of sacrifice but he had made it anyway and now as she stands in the place where he died what she feels is not anger, but grief.

This is why she didn't want to come back, because she was not ready to face this loss. She feels the tears springing to her eyes, but they are only the outward manifestation of the flood of sorrow inside. This was where she died, where she loved, where she lost, where she became alone. Standing here, it is only now she understands what being alone truly is. All her life she told herself that there was no one and nothing in the galaxy to which she was connected, but some small part of her, however distant, something sleeping so deep in her consciousness she was never really aware of it, knew that wasn't the case. She had always been part of a pair, part of two that were one, part of a dyad linked by a thread so strong it endured over time and distance, across two sides of a war, winding tighter and tighter until here, in this place, Ben gave his life to save hers and that connection snapped.

There is a man standing in front of her, frowning, his fingers reaching out, but he is not the man she loved. She is sure of that now, with the clarity of grief to sharpen her senses. This person looks like Ben, but he is different underneath. It was never the outward appearance of the man that attracted her, but the beating heart within, the tortured soul inside she wanted to save, to hold in her arms while he made the empty part of her complete.

She can't do this. She can't be here again, the pain is too intense. She runs.

She leaves him behind and takes off, breaking for the opposite side of the cave, where tunnels in the rock promise shelter from the storm of weeping she knows is coming. She doesn't hear his footsteps chasing her, he must realise she needs to be alone. She flails blindly through rock-cut rooms, crashing into pieces of abandoned equipment without care, sliding on the remains of walls and stumbling through collapsed corridors until something stops her in her tracks.

It is the face of her father.

He stares at her through the side of a transparisteel tank, and it takes her a while to realise that he isn't moving. She hasn't seen him since she was small, but it was only a few days ago that Ren was busy crushing these memories from the kernel of her past and her father's features are familiar from that moment of farewell. He is suspended in some kind of viscous liquid, simply hanging inside a large box, completely naked and appearing no older than she is now. She bites her lip, steps closer, as her brain pulls her emotions back into line and she begins to think.

The man in the tank cannot be her father, her father is dead and has been dead for a long time, which means that this is someone, or something else. The tank is supported on a metal base, and Rey kneels in front of it, brushing off the panel fixed to the front which bears a number in the high three thousands. The tank has controls, a rudimentary datacore which is not operational, and the power cell which once supported it is dead. She stands, looking past the tank to a line of others which stretch on into the distance and she doesn't need a computer to tell her what has been happening here.

The resemblance is too close to be co-incidence. Her father was a clone, one of Palpatine's experiments, grown here in the depths of Exegol and escaped somehow, released into the wider galaxy to meet Rey's mother and have a daughter. But this clone has not been destroyed. Unlike those she saw on a holo once back on Ajan Kloss, these tanks all contain preserved specimens which have been kept, and not allowed to rot away over time. For what possible reason could her grandfather have wanted to keep these clones intact, while those he had grown from Ben's template had been allowed to decay? She can think of an answer, but she doesn't like it.

Perhaps these experiments have been retained because they were still useful, perhaps there was something in their makeup that might still have value, perhaps they were being stored for a greater purpose. She recalls what Poe said to her on the jungle moon, during that moment of discovery when she realised Ben had survived. Poe had said there were more things hidden on Exegol than genetic copies of the Supreme Leader, there were things here he didn't want to tell her about. As she passes through the cloning facility she begins to wonder what other clones might be hiding in the next room, or the next. Perhaps there will be clones of her mother, perhaps there will be clones of Rey herself. Perhaps she is a clone, stolen from her birthplace here in this dark nursery, spirited away to be raised as if she were a real person, with her own identity, her own face. Lando had told her that clones could be imprinted with memories which were not their own – perhaps all that Rey remembers is a lie.

Her footsteps quicken as she passes from one room to the next, hurrying now to find the truth. She has had so many versions of her history in her short life – Rey of no family, Rey Palpatine, Rey Skywalker – she isn't sure who she is any more. She is so caught up in her quest that she misses sounds from the outside, sounds to which she really should have been paying attention.

'Rey!'

It is a familiar shout. This voice has called her name frequently and she stops short at the sound of it, so warm, so full of friendship and camaraderie, so unthreatening. She turns to see him standing in the corridor behind her. Finn, whose presence she can now feel in the Force loud and clear, although she has been too absorbed in her own emotions to notice up till now.

'Rey!'

This time the word is not so friendly. Poe emerges from a doorway behind her, flanked by a dozen or more Resistance soldiers, all armed, and although their weapons are raised, they are not pointing in her direction. The expression on his face is closed, as if he is reserving judgement, but he does not order the troops to stand down.

'Rey!'

This last voice is the one she doesn't want to hear. Ben steps out of the door she has just left, his black cloak swinging around his ankles, still carrying Kylo Ren's distinctive helmet, and he casts only a cursory glance at the Resistance, whose weapons instantly swivel to aim at his head. His focus is all on her and he holds out a placatory hand.

Rey's own hand drops to her lightsaber.


	21. Chapter 21

She feels it coming with a sick sense of familiarity. It lunges out of the darkness at the back of her mind, fully formed and baring its claws, and its voice is a red coated roar. Anger. Born of grief and loss and loneliness and the unfairness of her life it shapes her, it defines her, and it is in control. She knows what she must do.

There is no way out of this. Her gaze shifts from Ben to Finn to Poe, the three most significant men in her life, and she knows that not all of them will be walking out of this situation alive. Although she has run from Ben, although he is not what he was, he is all she has and she will defend him to the death. Poe will try to kill him, she reads it in his stance, the way his fingers twitch in the direction of his blaster. Finn will try to protect her as he has always done, to save her from herself and he will get in her way. She will have to decide whether or not to hurt him in order to set Ben free – she will have to choose between them. Poe's dark eyes flicker from her to Finn and she knows that he understands this too.

Ben steps forward, still holding out his hand. As one, the rebel soldiers take aim, but he ignores them. 'Don't do it,' he says, speaking as if there is no one else in the room.

She ignites the blade, shakes her head. 'You know I must.' The anger has hardened into certainty – the course of action she must take is the only one the Resistance have left her. She cannot lose Ben, and if they have backed her into a corner, they must expect her to fight her way out. Everything that happens now is their fault.

He gives her a level stare. 'Don't do this for me. I'm not worth it. If you hurt the ones you love, there will be no difference between you and Kylo Ren.'

She is conscious of Poe's eyes narrowing as he attempts to comprehend Ben's warning. Ben is wrong though; he thinks she still has an option. But all the decisions Rey has made since she woke up on Exegol have led her here. There is nothing else she can do. She raises the saber in preparation for attack – so far, she has managed not to kill anyone except a couple of Sith troopers who don't count, but this skirmish will not be without casualties. 'I have no choice,' she says. 'They will put you on trial. You'll be sentenced to death.'

He steps forward, and Rey can sense fingers tensing on triggers. Ben can defend himself properly now, but he hasn't reached for his weapon and she has a nasty feeling that he isn't going to – it isn't the Jedi way. He will leave this to her. He says, 'I know.' He moves past her at pace, his blade clattering to the ground, his hands held out in front of him as he approaches General Dameron. 'I surrender.'

Poe simply blinks at him, as if he expected anything else but this, and Finn sags noticeably as he relaxes. Poe recovers quickly, nods, and the Republic fighters close over Ben like a wave, searching him for weapons, slapping restraints on his wrists, surrounding him in a sea of blaster muzzles. He does nothing but stare in Rey's direction, a mute plea in his eyes. He doesn't want her to react. Once again, he has decided on a course of action, like when he contacted the First Order, or when he died to bring her back, and he hasn't consulted with her in advance. He is so determined to sacrifice himself on her behalf he hasn't stopped to ask if this is what she wants, he simply goes ahead and puts himself in danger and doesn't think about the consequences.

Ben hesitates for a moment, meets her wounded stare and she wishes the bond were still operational with every fibre of her being. He says, 'This isn't what you think.'

Rey's head is buzzing. There is such a welter of emotion inside her she struggles to contain it; she can feel her hands shaking, her breath growing short, her face overheating. She feels like she is full of static, like someone is talking inside her on the end of a bad commlink and however hard she listens, she can't make out what they are trying to say. She has never been so angry in her life, and there is so much rage inside her it has to have an outlet. She wants to lash out at Ben for putting her in this position, and she also wants to protect him; she doesn't want to hurt her friends, but she also wants to rip them apart for getting in her way. Everyone in the room watches her as carefully as if she is a bomb with a lit fuse, about to detonate and Rey struggles to control herself. It never used to be this difficult. She could manage conflict before she died but now the struggle inside her needs release and instead of running to the attack, she turns and hurls her lit saber at the far wall instead.

Poe takes the opportunity to move, shepherding his new captive towards whatever ship he arrived in and Ben simply seats the helmet purposefully on his head, turns and allows his gaolers to lead him away without a backwards look. She is shocked by how quickly it happens. One minute they are together, and she is busy agonising about how much or how little he is like his previous self, and the next they have been separated and she has lost him completely. He hadn't made a fuss, or attempted to fight, he let himself be taken, as if he expected it, or thought he deserved it, or – she realises suddenly – as if he had a plan.

She clings to his last words – _this isn't what you think_ – because she has nothing else to cling to. He must have anticipated that the Resistance would track him here, or be waiting for him on Exegol and had gone with them as part of some scheme she can't fathom, in the same way he planned his escape to the First Order as Kylo Ren. She isn't sure what he hopes to gain, and she isn't sure she rates his tactical ability particularly highly, but the roar of departing engines tells her she has no choice.

Finn taps her on the shoulder, for long enough that she realises that it isn't meant as a tap, but as a pat. 'It's alright,' he says, in a tone which is probably supposed to be reassuring. 'It's all over now. You're safe.'

She turns to face him and holds out her hand for her saber, hefting it in her palm the moment it obeys her summons. 'Of course I'm safe. I'm always safe.'

Finn's expression takes on a cast which is probably meant to be sympathetic. 'You don't need to pretend to be strong with me. I know you, Rey. And –' here his voice drops to a whisper – 'I can sense you.'

'I can sense you too. Like an annoying itch at the back of my mind.'

'Then why didn't you run when you sensed me waiting on Exegol? I was trying to hide myself but I don't really know how to do it yet.'

That is an excellent question, and one to which Rey doesn't have an immediate answer. She has been distracted since the shuttle first headed in the direction of this planet, and it is possible that this lack of attention has helped to conceal Finn's presence, but that doesn't explain why Ben had also missed another Force user down on the surface. She wonders if he did miss it, or if he had sensed Finn and simply decided that the risk of capture was worth it to find out more about his origins.

'How did you know we'd come here?' she asks.

She falls into step beside Finn as he begins to follow the remaining Republic troops heading towards their landing area. 'We didn't, at first. There are reception squads waiting at locations that might be important to you – Jakku, Ahch-To, Takodana – but we were only certain you were coming here when you sent the stolen intelligence transmission through and given the location you sent it from, Poe figured you might be on your way back to Exegol.'

'I knew coming back was a mistake,' she shakes her head. 'What's going to happen next?'

Finn shrugs. 'A trial. Poe's been preparing for it since you left Ajan Kloss. Kylo Ren will be put on trial for war crimes and when he's found guilty he'll be dealt with.'

'How? I'm not getting involved.'

Finn tries the awkward pat again and she sidesteps him before it can go on too long. 'No one expects you to. You've been through enough, with being taken prisoner and the mind control and everything.'

'Mind control? You think all this is mind control?'

Finn rolls a shoulder. 'Yeah, I struggled with the idea at first, but the way Poe explains it makes sense. You haven't been yourself since you got back from killing the Emperor, you must know that. Poe says you tried to choke him to death and you broke Ren out of a Resistance prison and took him straight back to the First Order. The Rey I know would never have done any of those things. You're not yourself – someone is making you behave like this and the only Force user I know powerful enough is Kylo Ren.'

Rey has been shaking her head for some time. 'That's not what happened. I didn't mean to choke Poe, it was a mistake, and I escaped on Ajan Kloss because it was the right thing to do – Poe was going to kill him, did he mention that? And there is something else you don't know about me, something that explains everything that's happened recently. I'm not who you think I am.'

'You mean because you're a Palpatine?' Finn trots out her lineage as if it doesn't matter. 'That doesn't explain anything. You've been a Palpatine as long as I've known you and you've never tried to choke your friends before. I don't buy it – genetics doesn't make you who you are, only choice does that. Wasn't that why you took Skywalker as your family name? Weren't you trying to show that your bloodline doesn't define you? Why are you so keen to go back on that now?'

She doesn't really have an answer, because she quite liked this exculpation for her recent decision making – if the anger inside her is not coming from her ancestry, then that means she is responsible for it, and that is a far more frightening prospect. 'And you think mind control is a better explanation?'

Finn stops walking for a second and gives her a long, hard look. 'It's the only explanation I have, at the moment. Unless you can think of a better one?'

There is something lurking at the back of her mind, an idea which has been germinating for a little while now but is not quite ready to flower. She can't put it into words. 'He hasn't been controlling my mind,' she mutters.

Finn carries on, and together they board a non-descript shuttle she doesn't even notice and blast off along a vector she doesn't care about, to a destination she can't name. 'It doesn't really matter whether you think so or not,' her friend says, once the journey is underway. 'We have evidence that you weren't responsible for most of it anyway. Poe captured the crew of that ship you were on, the cargo freighter, and found loads of contraband weapons in the hold, along with a lot of logs. Turns out the captain was an ex-Imperial officer and he'd been hauling supplies for the First Order for years, from before they destroyed Hosnian Prime, and he wasn't planning on stopping any time soon. He wouldn't talk but one of the cargo handlers spilled everything – he said it was Ren's idea to re-join the First Order, not yours, and you tried to stop him. Is that true?'

Rey shrugs stiffly and stares at the floor.

'And the First Order held you captive once you arrived, didn't they?'

'How do you know that?' Rey sincerely hopes that Finn doesn't know what the terms of her captivity involved. It isn't that she is ashamed of having slept with Ben exactly, but she is well aware of how her time on the _Obdurate_ will look to prying eyes.

'It was obvious from the daily broadcasts by Ren, and from eyewitness reports of the raid on Coruscant that you weren't involved.'

'What broadcasts?' she asks weakly. 'What raid?'

'We intercepted the First Order's news channel and Ren was giving motivational speeches from the day you arrived. There was a whole load of stuff about how he had been captured by the Resistance but had fought his way free, about how incompetent we were, about how the attack on Exegol had been a lucky strike, it was all very boring. But he didn't mention you once, and we knew that if you'd really turned to the dark side you'd have been next to him – they'd have been showing you off as a defector, but you weren't there so we knew you weren't supporting him.'

'I was locked in my room,' she admits. 'I only got out once before we left. Tell me about the raid. The Order doesn't have that many ships left, I'm surprised they thought they could take Coruscant.'

'It wasn't much of a raid,' Finn says, in a smug tone. 'Really badly planned. There were no casualties on our side whatsoever, we were really lucky. So the First Order turn up with nearly forty Destroyers, the whole fleet, as far as we can tell, and they start powering up their weapons so we ready the planetary defences and send out the fighters to engage and then they have some sort of malfunction with their shields. The shields go up, and then a couple of seconds later they go down again, and it keeps happening – not a single one of the Star Destroyers can maintain their shield integrity and as soon as they realise that they turn around and run away again. They go so fast that quite a lot of TIEs are left behind and we capture the pilots and interrogate them. No one mentions you being involved. All briefings and inspections were done by Ren or his generals, according to the pilots and none of them knew your name at all, Poe asked.'

Rey shakes her head. 'When we arrived the First Order generals were monitoring everything he did, but I remember him saying after a while that the generals had started to trust him and by the end they seemed to be obeying his orders. He must have demonstrated his loyalty somehow.'

'Did you know anything about the raid on Coruscant, Rey?' Finn asks carefully.

'Nothing at all,' she says and Finn's shoulders sag in response.

'I know you're telling the truth,' he replies. 'I can sense it, but even if I couldn't I'd still know.' He pulls a commlink out of a storage locker and opens a channel without letting her see the recipient of his call. 'Yeah, I asked her and she didn't know. Yeah, I'm sure. Yes, I used the Force,' he reports. 'She's in the clear. I said she would be.' He cuts the call and returns the device with an apologetic shrug. 'Poe asked me to check. Now everything can go back to normal.' He pats her on the knee.

Rey has had quite enough of the patting, closes her eyes and strives for calm. It isn't easy. She is angry, because she is always angry, but it isn't acute at the moment. She feels more conflicted than anything. It is obvious that Ben has been playing a more dangerous game than she suspected. He has constructed for her an effective cover story, one that has bought her safe passage back into the heart of the Resistance, should she want it, but he has lied to her to do it, and has guaranteed his own guilt in whatever trial is coming. She suspects that this is because he knew that, if captured, he would be found guilty for crimes committed before he came back from the dead, so a few more wouldn't matter, and he also needed the trust of the First Order's generals to gather the intelligence she had sent over to the Resistance only a few short hours ago. The sudden and catastrophic shield malfunction has his fingerprints all over it, and she is sure it is not simply luck that no lives were lost as part of this failure of a raid.

But the extent of his will to save her at the cost of his own survival sets her teeth on edge. She can feel Finn's smile even with her eyes closed and she can sense how desperately he wants to put all of this behind them, and welcome her back with open arms. But Rey no longer wants the comfort of a hug. Ben has backed himself into a corner and she isn't sure how he is planning on getting out. She doesn't know what his exit strategy is, or even if he has one, and so she must be ready to extricate him from this mess herself. He has saved her, once again, and now she must save him back.

Finn launches into a lengthy monologue on recent developments in his relationship with Jannah, and their search for their respective birth families and Rey provides appropriate sounding comments whenever he pauses. After a while, she starts yawning and then apologises for her rudeness effusively enough that Finn is too polite to continue and Rey gets to close her eyes and pretend to sleep. The journey back is so long that pretend sleep has transitioned into actual sleep by the time they land, and Rey staggers, bleary eyed, through disembarkation, and a lengthy journey by airspeeder until Finn unlocks the door of her new quarters and she stumbles in.

The light within the tiny room is so bright she has to squint to see, and it cuts through her grogginess like a plasma blade through flesh. She has been allocated accommodation directly opposite a giant holo-projector, which, instead of the advertising it usually carries, is now broadcasting news into the sky. Specifically, it is now broadcasting Ben. An image of his face towers above the throng of high rise skyscrapers which cluster thickly around Rey's own building, a face which appears composed and calm, although Rey knows how much effort will be going into keeping it that way. Ben stares out impassively from whatever cell is now holding him, oblivious to the fact that his likeness is plastered thousands of feet into the air.

Around the bottom of the image run words in a variety of languages – _Coming soon: the trial of Kylo Ren._


	22. Chapter 22

On her first day on Coruscant, Rey learns that she does not like big cities. This is a bit of a problem, since the whole of the planet is one big city, where everything comes at a premium. There is no space here - the room in which Rey wakes, after a broken and fitful night's sleep, is smaller than her walker on Jakku, kitchen, bedroom, and lounge all crammed into a single square box, the fresher behind a flimsy door in one corner. Space is at a premium, and it swiftly becomes apparent that this extends to both ground and sky too. Rey's apartment is halfway up an average sized tower and, stepping out of her room first thing the next morning she quickly learns how far below her the foundations of the building actually are – she cannot see what she ultimately is standing on and when she looks up, the view is obscured by giant constructions which stretch upwards into a vague brightness that must be a sun.

Privacy also appears to be at a premium, because everywhere she goes, she is stared at. For a while she thinks that her likeness must have been used by the New Republic as part of their media machine – they must have made her famous during their conquest of the galaxy after the fall of the First Order, but the telepathic hints she picks up from the citizens of this ecumenopolis reveal that this is not the case. The inhabitants of Coruscant do not recognise her face, they are attempting to assess her status by looking at her clothes, her hair, her weapons, her shoes. It makes her uncomfortable.

Credits to change any of these things however, are also at a premium, which she finds when she attempts to travel between the slices of society into which the city is cut. It is very easy to go down – Rey can call a turbolift or board an airspeeder and travel to levels below the one she has been assigned – but when she tries to go up beyond a certain point her Resistance account is declined and she cannot progress. Being the last Jedi does not guarantee her entry into the upper echelons of Coruscant, it appears. Nor does it give her access to the government headquarters of the New Republic from which her old friends now rule.

She tries to see Poe, to ask him where he is holding Ben, but she is denied entry and when she looks carefully at the front of the building she realises she can still see the First Order sigil underneath the Republic logo. She suspects that many of these institutions have simply had new names slapped on the front, and peeling back the layers would reveal the First Order, the Republic before it and the Empire before that, layer upon layer. Integrity may also be at a premium here.

Rey wanders the public transport systems, the elevated parks, shopping centres and walkways and she listens for the information she seeks instead, pulling it out of random conversations, stray thoughts. Finn returns her belongings from the command shuttle – the pack with the Jedi texts, Ben's old clothes and her new dress – and she twists her face into small talk because she has recognised that she needs him on her side.

'The trial is the day after tomorrow,' he tells her, in response to her question.

Time is also at a premium.

'Am I invited?'

'Of course, but you'll have to sit with me.'

'I'm not giving evidence?'

'No need. It's a straightforward case. What can he possibly say in his defence?'

Rey doesn't know, but she trusts that Ben has a plan, at least up to a point. She needs one too, and since he wouldn't let her fight when she had the chance, her plan must involve escape.

On her second day on Coruscant, Rey learns that Ben is not on the planet and is being held in an orbiting detention block manned by droids running on sealed systems which are entirely impenetrable to external hackers, even ones who are being mind controlled. She also learns that there is no way up to the floating prison except as a genetically profiled, officially sanctioned visitor, whose DNA is sampled before any transport is allowed to take off in a way that prevents any Force related manipulation.

On this educational day, Rey also learns that the trial will be held in the New Republic Courts of Justice, information which is not hard to come by since it is being broadcast in massive letters across all available news hoardings in the city. This edifice has gone by a few names, but its duracrete towers appear to have been constructed to last and she is not surprised it has stayed in use. It is surprisingly easy to access, particularly as a Jedi using a hastily practised alter image technique, and Rey is able to scout entrances and exits at her leisure. She quickly determines that the spindly towers themselves are too obvious an escape route, so instead she finds a likely looking private docking bay in a service area of one of the square administrative buildings surrounding the court, which is a short, direct run from the main courtroom where Ben will inevitably learn his fate. In this docking bay Rey parks the sort of fast, anonymous, two man, hyperdrive enabled shuttle she should have stolen when escaping Ajan Kloss and in a sop to Ben's sensibilities she even pays something for it, although well below the market rate. The rest of her available credit she turns into chips which will buy them some time, if little else. Once they have escaped, they will both need to get jobs.

On her third day on Coruscant Rey packs, remembering the recently purchased changes of clothes she usually forgets and then she comms Finn to let him know she will not be sitting with him in the courtroom. She arrives early, but there is already a queue. This is to be a public trial, a live broadcast to the rest of galaxy exactly as Poe had envisaged from the start, but there are so many people waiting that Rey doubts there will be many left at home to watch. The mood in the queue is ugly. From the conversations Rey overhears, it is clear that Ben is not just being held accountable for the actions of Kylo Ren, he is to be made to pay for the whole First Order, for the fall of the New Republic, and even, by those with the longest memories, for the Empire itself.

For the first time, Rey is worried. Marooned on Jakku, over the last year she has become aware of just how much of a sheltered life she has led, but here on Coruscant, standing in the middle of a jostling, bad tempered, militant crowd, she realises how much the people need an enemy. Her life has not been easy, but intricate political machinations, the big shifts in government and economics have not really touched her. Here, in the beating heart of the galaxy's capital, they are all important, and all these people are looking for someone to blame. Rey knows from conversations with Leia that the New Republic, before it was so recently restored, was not a golden age of peace and plenty. The lawmakers on Hosnian Prime may have talked about equality and shifted their base of government around to make things more equitable, but their inaction allowed the First Order to grow, in the same way that the Republic senate was too indecisive to act and was betrayed from within. No one came to help the Resistance on Crait, no one would stand up to the Order in its prime, and it took the madness of a galactic threat and the old horror of the Palpatine name to force the people to come together in defiance.

It is easier to have enemies than acknowledge the complexity of the truth, Rey sees, standing in the crowd, wearing the face of a pre-pubescent female Caphex whom no one will find threatening. The First Order destroyed Hosnian Prime, and many of the people on Coruscant will have been directly affected by this atrocity. It doesn't matter to them who ordered it, it doesn't matter whether Kylo Ren pulled the trigger or not, it doesn't even matter that he is now Ben Solo – he is the face of the enemy and he must be eliminated. Rey knows that if she was going by Palpatine and not Skywalker and announced her last name to the crowd she would be in serious danger. She is worried, because she is not sure how she will escape so many people with Ben's life intact – she cannot kill them all, even should she be angry enough try. Poe was right about this trial all along, and Rey herself had been very wrong – once word got out that Ben had survived, public punishment was inevitable, and judging by the mood of the crowd they will call for his blood.

Rey is one of the last people admitted to the court, and it takes some judicious use of the Force to convince someone on the front row to exchange their seat with her so that she has a better view. The courtroom is circular, with a central podium in the middle on which the accused will stand, ringed by banks of high seating, carved in wood, which is both old and uncomfortable, with a gap separating audience and defendant. The judges will sit on a hovering platform which is currently unoccupied and is tethered at ground level, but Rey imagines that this will be elevated once the trial begins, ensuring the accused must look up to face justice.

Finn is also on the front row, albeit on the opposite side of the room, and he is sitting next to a person that Rey also recognises – Lando Calrissian, who appears to have aged even more since she saw him last. They do not see her, with her disguise intact, although Finn squints around the room a few times attempting to pick her out of the throng. He probably senses that she is here and will be troubled by the fact that he can't see her face. Rey puts her pack under the bench on which she sits, and waits.

The audience is restless, people crammed together so tightly that tempers flare as elbows are shoved outwards in an attempt to gain more space, voices raise in complaint as the wait lengthens. From outside the wide double doors - which were closed once the seating was full to bursting - comes a rushing sound, the noise of shouting, some banging and a sudden roar of blaster fire. Then the doors swing back and even more people swarm the hall, heading for the only empty space, on the floor of the chamber surrounding the defendant's podium, and they jam into this pit until it is standing room only.

There is a recorded sound, like a bell, or some kind of brass instrument and the doors bang open again, this time admitting three figures, all dressed in a sombre dark grey, all of whom are wearing hats. Under one of these hats gleam Poe's dark eyes, the blonde woman from Ajan Kloss has set another at a severe angle but Rey does not know the third judge. There is some spontaneous clapping as the three of them mount the hovering panel of justice, which launches into the air and comes to rest above the heads of the crowd in the pit. The room falls silent as Poe bangs a diminutive hammer onto the table in front of him, but the silence is short-lived.

First into the hall is a Republic guard, bearing a blaster rifle and after him, Ben emerges at the top of the stairs, followed by another guard. Rey straightens immediately, hoping to catch his eye, but it is quickly apparent that he has more pressing concerns. He is wearing the familiar black costume in which he was captured, and the guard at his back is carrying the totemic Ren helmet, but as he scans the courtroom a ripple skims the crowd, people shift in their seats, and then the shouting starts.

'Murderer!' is the first yell, in a heavy accent that Rey can't place.

'Death to the First Order,' bellows someone else from the opposite site of the seating.

'Guilty. He's guilty,' screeches a third.

Ben doesn't react, or he tries not to, but the skin around his eyes contracts slightly and his mouth draws into a tight line. The leading guard makes it down the stairs to the bottom of the bank of seats, but then he has to cut a path though the latecomers thronging the bottom of the court, and, following in his wake, Ben is jostled and pushed by the angry crowd. He tries not to lose his composure, but it cannot be easy.

Rey concentrates for a minute, and then the man sitting next to her stands abruptly and booms out at the top of his voice: 'Let him pass.'

'Call yourself a judge, Dameron?' the person to Rey's right hollers. 'This isn't justice. Let him through.'

'Disgraceful,' bawls a woman directly behind where Rey is sitting. 'Move out of the way.'

This last contribution is so loud that everyone in the room takes notice, and the commotion draws Ben's attention. His gaze passes over the source of the noise and settles on Rey and his nod is so faint it is barely perceptible. She knows that he is grateful to have at least one supporter in the room because his steps become less hesitant, and he twitches a hand slightly to open up more of a route through the crowd. He gains the safety of the defendant's podium, which is raised from the base of the chamber and the guards take up position on either side, so that Rey now has a clear view. The trailing guard sets the helmet down on the edge of the podium with a bang.

Carefully, and without hurrying, Ben scans the audience, and although she can see that Lando is sitting up in his chair and is desperate to catch his eye, Ben passes over him without a flicker of recognition. Finn too, is ignored. But Ben decides not to face the judges either, and angles himself so that he is facing Rey directly, and that when he speaks, he will be addressing her. She doesn't understand why he has positioned himself in this way, but it puts her on her guard – he will clearly be needing something from her during the trial, he will signal something for which he requires eye contact, and she needs to be ready to react.

Poe and the other judges exchange a glance, but with the defendant now only side on, and determined not to give them his full attention they are obliged to move. The hovering platform hums across the ceiling and comes to rest directly above her head. Poe bangs the gavel down on the table a few times, but it is another voice which speaks.

'By the power vested in me by the High Council of the New Republic, I call this trial to order.'

The muttering grumble which has undercut events in the chamber so far finally falls silent and everyone, including Ben, looks up at the panel of judges. Everyone but Rey, that is, who uses the sudden quiet to have the man next to her ask a very loud, and very pertinent question.

'Where's his lawyer?' When no one answers, he asks an even louder follow-up. 'If this is a trial, why doesn't Kylo Ren have legal representation?'

There is another round of muttering, but most of it appears to be addressed towards the unfortunate patsy Rey has chosen, rather than the procedure of the court itself.

The gavel bangs again and the third judge continues. 'This is a military court, and after extensive debate, it has been decided to hold this trial under martial law, pending the full re-establishment of the New Republic. During these interim measures, the full legal process has been suspended, and a process of summary justice has been put in place to deal quickly with the enemies of peace. Does the defendant object to these measures?'

Ben looks Rey right in the eye and shakes his head. She frowns at him. She doesn't know much about trials, but surely this would be a good time to challenge the legality of the process. At least two of these judges are not independent, he has no counsel and has been given two days to prepare a defence under a system which is not the normal rule of law in the Republic. Surely these are good grounds to object and delay this sham long enough to at least work out a proper escape plan? But Ben doesn't seem to think so because he shakes his head once more for emphasis, ensuring that she gets the message.

'Are you absolutely certain you do not wish to object?' There is a pause, in which no one says anything and then: 'State the charges,' commands the voice of the third judge.

A woman that Rey knows speaks next, the second judge, the one Rey met once on Ajan Kloss who wore a black outfit, the military leader with the badge Rey couldn't place. 'The defendant is charged with crimes against the New Republic and the population of the galaxy at large. Our case will state that the defendant did, in his role as commander of the First Order, permit the creation of an illegal military force in the Unknown Regions and then, using this military force and the superweapon known as Starkiller Base, cause the destruction of the Hosnian system with the loss of countless innocent lives. In this post, and in his post as Supreme Leader of the First Order, the defendant then ordered the subjugation of a large number of independent planets, enslavement of their populations, conscription of the children of these planets into the First Order military, and the asset stripping of these worlds for resources. The defendant then, in conjunction with his ally the ex-Emperor Palpatine, ordered the creation of a further fleet, declared war on the rest of the galaxy and caused the destruction of the planet of Kijimi, with consequent loss of life. Following the obliteration of this navy by the Resistance, the defendant then organised a raid on Coruscant, which was subsequently foiled.'

'Do you accept these charges?' the third judge intones.

Ben nods. Rey is not sure what she can do about this. The charges they have brought against him are sweeping, and will be impossible to refute in their current form. If Ben has a defence, he will not remember it, and there are no witnesses from the First Order available to speak for him, even should they have something to say.

'Summarise the evidence for the prosecution,' the third judge says, and her comrade obliges.

'We will bring eyewitnesses who were employed on Starkiller Base to testify to its construction and destructive potential…'

A movement across the court catches Rey's eye and she sees Finn sit up in his seat, as she guesses who this eyewitness will be.

'…and we will bring evidence from witnesses who narrowly escaped the massacre on Hosnian Prime, to recount the impact on the planet and its government.'

There is a stir in the hall – clearly many people present are able to provide evidence of this.

'We will also hear from a member of the New Republic government whose sister was murdered by the First Order, who can speak to the treatment of her world by the Order and we will call an ex-stormtrooper, a woman who defected before the Order fell, to tell of her conscription by the Order as a child. We will also hear from a native of Kijimi who escaped to fight with the Resistance in the battle of Exegol on the elimination of her homeworld and its devastating loss.'

Ben says nothing, doesn't even react and Rey imagines that he has no idea who any of these people are, although she can guess all their names.

'We will call the crew of the cargo freighter, the _Long Goodnight_, to testify to Ren's desire to return to the First Order after escaping the Resistance, and we will call two captured pilots from the Supreme Leader's own command shuttle, who narrowly escaped the slaughter of their Sith trooper comrades and were abandoned recently on Cademimu V to give first hand accounts of Ren's briefings aboard his new flagship, the _Obdurate_. Finally, we will use primary sources – recordings of Supreme Leader Ren, his predecessors and known associates, to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt, his guilt in respect of all charges.'

'You have heard the charges and you have heard a summary of the evidence which will be brought against you. How do you plead?' The third judge's tone is flint and steel and it strikes sparks across the tinderbox of the courtroom.

There is a moment of complete silence before Ben says, 'Not guilty.'

The courtroom erupts into a slew of jumbled noise as everyone starts talking at once and Poe has to bang his gavel down on numerous occasions before order is restored. 'Not guilty,' he repeats, his voice stiff with irritation. 'The defendant pleads not guilty. Despite the fact that he tortured me himself.' These last words are muttered in an undertone that no one misses.

'I've told you before, I don't remember you,' Ben repeats patiently. 'And I'm not responsible for whatever was done to you by Kylo Ren. I'm not him.'

There is more uproar as the impact of these words is loudly debated.

But Poe has commandeered a microphone now and his words are projected over the top of the crowd. 'No one here cares whether you call yourself Ben Solo or Kylo Ren, you'll be tried for your crimes whatever name you choose.'

Ben bends forward slowly and it is Rey he is looking at now, fixing her with a stare she hasn't seen for a while, that stare which is so full of pain it reminds her of how he looked sometimes before he died.

'I'm not Ben Solo either,' he enunciates clearly, and then he runs a hand through his hair. 'I am Project Thirty Four.'


	23. Chapter 23

Rey sits and blinks at him a few times, not really understanding what has just been said. Her reaction appears common to the rest of the room, because although there are a few whispers, the shouting has stopped.

'I'm a clone,' he explains, not breaking eye contact. 'I am the thirty-fourth clone of Kylo Ren to be created by Emperor Palpatine in his cloning lab on Exegol. I was created two years ago as part of an ongoing experiment to prepare a functioning replacement body for Palpatine, once projects to clone his own genetic material had repeatedly failed. I was designed as a vessel to host the consciousness of the Emperor, who would transfer into me after I had struck him in anger with a lightsaber. I was the only clone to survive the fall of Exegol, although four were still active before it, of the fifty originally created. I am not Kylo Ren. I am not Ben Solo, although I do contain the same genetic code. I am innocent of all the charges brought against me.'

He closes his speech and he stands there, looking at Rey and waiting for her response. And she is….pleased. This is a better plan than she was expecting. She'd thought he might make something of his treatment by Luke or how he was ensnared by Snoke as a reason for his past behaviour, before pleading for leniency with a heartfelt description of his loss of memory and redemption. But this is a far more compelling argument. With this, he can sidestep all charges much more easily. He simply has to call her as a witness to his death and he will be set free. So Rey nods at him, and offers an encouraging smile, and then she realises that she is not the only one. Much of the audience around her is also smiling, and then the smiles turn into laughter and the courtroom breaks into a chorus of jeers as people ridicule his claims in whatever manner they see fit.

Poe has to bang the gavel down so hard it sounds like he is trying to break the table. 'Court adjourned,' he yells, abandoning any attempt at judicial reserve. 'Court adjourned.'

But the voice of the third judge cuts across him. 'Do you have any evidence for these claims?' she asks.

Ben moves his attention upwards to focus on the panel above him. 'Of course I have evidence,' his voice is clear, and it booms across the packed chamber. 'General Dameron himself knows I'm telling the truth, that's why he's trying to stop the trial.'

Rey can't see anything because the judges are floating directly above her head but the necks of everyone else in the room crane up to check Poe's reaction.

Ben continues, 'He's seen a recording of the cloning chamber in which I was made, haven't you, General?'

Rey knows that this is true, but she also knows that Ben must have pulled this information from Poe's mind during the couple of days in which he has been incarcerated, and it will not count as evidence. Use of Jedi mind tricks may even weigh against him.

Poe takes a breath. 'Can you prove that?'

'Would you care to review the evidence, General?' Ben replies pleasantly. 'Or is it going to be the practice of the New Republic to condemn prisoners without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves?'

Poe doesn't say anything, it is the third judge who orders – 'You may summarise your defence.'

Ben twitches a single finger, and the mask which has been sitting on the edge of the podium all this time jumps into his hand. He reaches up with a certain amount of ceremony, and settles it onto his head. Many of the crowd around her shift and mutter, and it is obvious to Rey how the presence of a fully costumed Kylo Ren unsettles them. This may even be why Ben is still dressed as he was when he was captured, rather than having been provided with any other clothes. It may be that by making him wear this outfit the Republic believe he will appear more guilty. But almost as soon as the mask is on it is removed again and Ben's face smooths.

'This is the mask of Kylo Ren,' he announces. 'Amongst other things it records whatever the wearer sees, whatever he says, whatever he does. I used it to gather intelligence for the Republic when I was working undercover within the First Order, intelligence on the regime's secret base, weapons capability and troop levels, all of which I sent over to the Republic a few days ago. I've just taken the liberty of patching in this device to the public broadcast channel this trial is using and I've circulated all the recordings I made while pretending to lead the First Order so that the audience watching today can judge me for itself. The recordings I've just sent will show that I sabotaged the attack on Coruscant which I am accused of masterminding. But now I will address the substance of the charges against me…'

There are people all round the courtroom accessing communications devices. They are pretending not to, but Rey can see them withdrawing commlinks, tapping surreptitiously on datapads, pressing fingers to ears to activate embedded receivers. If Ben's recordings show that he is innocent, and she has no reason to think that they do not, given that he had plenty of time to edit them to the best possible advantage while still on the _Obdurate_, then he has already taken a significant step forward in managing his defence.

He flips the mask over and touches something on the rim. 'Some time after the death of the Emperor, I was discovered by Resistance troops on Exegol, fired at, and captured by their operatives. At that time I had, and continue to have, no memory of anything before I woke up on the floor outside the cloning chamber but it was apparent from news broadcasts shown to me that I bore more than a passing resemblance to the criminal known as Kylo Ren. Finding this suspicious, and knowing that the only source of the dead Supreme Leader's genetic profile was likely to be held by the First Order, I engineered safe passage to their fleet. Once on board, I had my blood compared to that of Ren, to find that the two samples were identical.'

The mask he is holding generates a holographic image, a genetic report that Rey vaguely remembers, set side by side with another which is clearly the same. She had bloodtests done before they were together the first time, and he had sent her back a matching, but far more comprehensive report very soon afterwards – she had thought at the time that he was just responding in kind, but now it appears that was not the case. Now she thinks this report was commissioned the minute he came on board the _Obdurate_, perhaps to reassure his new allies. He gestures and one of the reports expands large enough to fill the hall.

'At first, I thought this result meant that I must be Ren, and I proceeded accordingly –' his eyes flicker towards Rey and then dart away. 'But there was something odd about my report. There is no known illness to which I am not already immune. It is impossible for me to get sick, and this struck me as unusual. How many other people in the galaxy can say that they will never be vulnerable to some virus or other, even the most obscure? The more I considered this, the stranger it became. I already wished to return to Exegol to chase down the truth of my origins, but it was at this point I realised that the journey was imperative.'

Rey is not pleased with this revelation. He has mentioned none of these concerns to her, although perhaps this does explain why he would not let her read his mind when she suggested it after the first time they slept together – any concerns he had around his identity would have been revealed by such access. She can't help wondering what else he has kept hidden, but he continues too fast to give her any time to ponder this thought.

'Knowing that the Republic was waiting to arrest me, I landed on the planet and searched the ruins for anything that seemed familiar. This is what I found.'

Rey recognises the image now being projected into the air, a recording which must also be being fed live to the watching audience all across the galaxy. The atmosphere within the court is tense, hushed as the story unfolds on screen. The perspective is at waist height, and it looks like Ben was carrying the mask as he hunted through Exegol, stumbling across the cloning chambers in the same way that Rey had found them – but Ben had taken a different turning and the long hall he has filmed is one that Rey has seen before.

'This is tank thirty-four,' Ben narrates, as the camera narrows in on the transparisteel case and its metallic base. 'As you can see the datacore is still active. When I ran the diagnostic routine, this is what I found.'

In the recording, the apparatus controlling the tank projects a series of facts and figures, diagrams and graphs, each of which spins past almost too fast to understand, but Ben's calm voice explains it all.

'The growth programme the tank was running was terminated after twenty-six months of activity. The subject within the tank – me - was performing well in terms of physical and mental development, performance which had already outstripped that of all the other experiments in the batch of fifty grown from the same sample. Project thirty-four had a particularly high midichlorian count – that's a marker that means someone is strong with the Force – and for that reason had not been terminated along with most of the other clones with a lower count. Aptitude with the Force was a key attribute for Palpatine's replacement body, given his position in the Sith.'

He glances over at Rey but she frowns back. She doesn't think that this Force related defence is going to be very accessible to anyone else in the room, she only vaguely remembers these details from the Jedi texts and she guesses that no one else knows what a midichlorian is. She makes a circling motion for him to move on. She doesn't know what happened to the clone in the tank, and she doesn't care, as long as he is dead, but Ben's defence needs to be solid and it needs to be clear to the audience, since he is being tried by public opinion as much as anything else.

Ben waits for a minute, and when she doesn't do anything else he carries on. 'The datacore showed that project thirty-four had been inoculated against every disease in the Sith database, as I have. The clone was sufficiently advanced to have received the basics of an education programme, although no memories had been implanted, and no personality imprinted. The education programme included various different languages, not just Basic, along with a history component covering galactic events and key individuals which was out of date, having last been updated around a year ago. There was also a Force theory training course, which included both elementary Sith and Jedi teaching, which would allow the clone to defend himself before the practical training element had been delivered, should anything unexpected happen.' Here Ben glances up at Poe. 'As you know, when I was first found I was attacked by the Resistance, I was shot with blasters although I was unarmed and I managed to defend myself without even knowing how – because this course had already taught me the basics.'

He looks back at Rey and his eyes hold more emotion than she can possibly read. 'Project thirty-four had also received instruction in rudimentary galactic geography. Let's look at an entry at random shall we?' He reads out the words on the screen. 'Exegol,' he repeats. 'Location – Unknown Regions. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – Hask desert, Hon Zduul plateau, Sadow escarpment, Sith Citadel.'

She knows those words. He has said those exact words to her, in that exact order. She'd thought he sounded like an encyclopaedia then, and now it seems he was, in fact, parroting a textbook. Something cold clenches tight around her. The whispering and shuffling in the court is blanked out as she locks onto Ben's eyes and focuses only on him. He needs to say something now, something reassuring, he needs to give her some hint that this is all part of his defence, and he is not saying what she thinks he is saying. Or he needs to get his memories back immediately and open the bond, she would settle for either course of action.

'The diagnostic programme also records the exact time that seismic activity on Exegol disrupted the normal functioning of the tank and, because the clone had reached an acceptable stage of development, the release programme rather than the termination programme was triggered. If you look at this figure, I think you will find that it corresponds with the time that Rey Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, was defeating the Emperor and destroying his throneroom. At that point I was ejected from the tank and I was found, as I am sure Resistance eyewitnesses can confirm, not long afterwards, wandering the corridors, not yet able to speak. All the evidence I have presented can be verified – the tank is still on Exegol, the datacore is intact – anyone watching this broadcast can go and check for themselves.'

He takes a deep breath. 'Kylo Ren is dead. He was killed fighting Palpatine. The only witness to his death is here, and can confirm that what I am saying is true.'

This is the cue she has been waiting for. She drops her disguise and stands, although something odd appears to be happening to her legs, because she feels shaky and her voice seems to come from a long way away. 'I'm Rey Skywalker,' she says. 'Kylo Ren is dead.'

Above her head the judges' panel levitates in place, and then it gradually begins to turn. The three people on the platform stare at her, and one is significantly more hostile than the others. Poe leans forward, and speaks into the expectant silence which has gripped the audience, as they wait to find out what will happen next.

'And what about Ben Solo, Rey?' It is a pointed question, with a barb behind it. 'Is he dead too?'

She stares at Ben, and Ben stares at her. All she has to do is nod. She can lie, and say that Ben is dead, and then the two of them can walk out of this room and start a new life together. But she is no longer so sure that this would be a lie. Despite herself, the evidence he has presented seems to be wriggling around in her brain, a worm devouring her thoughts. How many times has he repeated details of ships and weapons, listed points of interest planet by planet, retained pointless information that no one else would know? How likely is it that he would have all this theoretical knowledge, and yet have forgotten how to pilot a speeder or hold a lightsaber? How likely is it, in fact, that death has wiped his memories, when it left hers untouched?

'When you answer,' continues Poe. 'Bear in mind that you are not the only Force user in the room. Bear in mind that your friend Finn will know if you lie.'

Rey bites her lip. She has known since the start that she would have to face the consequences of Finn's Force sensitivity eventually, and here they are, looking at her from across the courtroom. She is not so sure, however. Finn is not trained, and she is not sure that even a trained Jedi could be certain that another was telling the truth. Besides, all she need do is tell a half truth, she can easily say that Ben Solo died, she doesn't need to say that she thinks he was resurrected again. The thought sounds ludicrous even inside her head. She thinks he was resurrected. Somehow, in some way, the mystical power of the Force, a power which has bound them together since the moment of her birth has preserved his life – how likely is it that this is what has actually happened? She has never found an adequate explanation for how it might have come to pass, the Jedi texts drop hints, but they do not provide a rational description, a step by step guide to rising from the dead.

Ben is looking at her again, looking through her, as if he sees the thoughts turning agonisingly in her head. He says, 'I'm not a thief, Rey. You know I don't like to take things that don't belong to me.' He spreads his arms. 'And this name, this identity isn't mine. I'm not Ben Solo. I never was. I'm a clone. And you know it, deep down, you know it.'

She shakes her head, rejecting the statement. She wouldn't have gone to bed with him if she had thought he was a clone. It was only when he said he thought he was Ben that she spread her legs.

There is a faint smile on his lips. 'How many times have you called me 'Ben'?' he asks. 'Do you know? Have you counted? I have. Once. You called me Ben once, when you'd been shot with a blaster and were hallucinating. You never call me by his name. I started noticing on the _Obdurate_, and once I noticed I couldn't let it go. You don't call me by his name because you know I'm not him. I'm not Ben. Isn't that right?'

She opens her mouth to object, and then she stops. In her head, she always calls him Ben, he has that name in her thoughts, but she can't actually remember the last time she called him that out loud, apart from the single occasion he has already referred to. Perhaps she never has.

He hasn't finished. 'And then there's the clothes. I've carried your luggage around enough to know what's in it – the things you never leave behind. The things that are so precious you were willing to carry them through garbage to make sure they were safe. Your books, your lightsaber, and Ben's old clothes. Why do you still have his old clothes with you, Rey? If I'm Ben, then why do you need something to remember me by? I didn't realise what they were until I joined the First Order and they gave me these.' He waves a hand at his outfit, which is identical to the garments she carries in her bag. 'You keep the clothes he died in with you because you're still holding on. You can't let him go. And because you know I'm not him.'

She has no answer to this. There is no rational reason for the mementoes she has stuffed in her bag, the burden she has carried from planet to planet, ship to ship. She couldn't leave these last reminders of him behind on Exegol when he died and she has kept them with her ever since. She doesn't have an explanation other than the one he has just provided. Her reaction to loss is to hold on, to keep on hoping – she waited for years for her parents to return and now she sees that she is doing the same with Ben. She is waiting for him to come back, still waiting, despite the man who is standing in front of her.

She swallows hard, hoping that this will give her the ability to speak, but her throat remains silent.

'And there's something else.' His voice has dropped now, into a low, rasping tone which is meant for her ears alone but probably echoes around the court. 'You've never told me you love me. You're in love with him. You've always been in love with him. I think you're settling for me because we look the same and that isn't what I want – for you or for me.'

She sees then, that this isn't what she thought. This isn't a public trial, or it isn't only a public trial. This is a test, a very private test and it is a decision point. Once again, he is showing her who he is. This man is intelligent, observant, good with people and he is also kind, but he isn't to be taken for granted. He isn't someone she can pick up and put down as she chooses. He deserves respect. He stands there staring at her and she knows he doesn't see anyone else. She knows he doesn't care who is listening, or what they think – she is all that matters to him.

'I'm a clone, Rey. I'm not your Ben. I wanted to be, I really did. I wanted it as much as you did. That's why you've done such a good job of convincing yourself this last week. You wanted him to have come back so badly you were willing to overlook all the evidence to the contrary. But I'm not a thief and I won't take what's not mine. You're not mine, you never were. A piece of your heart still belongs to someone else. So you have a choice to make – me or him. I need to ask you, one more time, the question I asked you when we first met. The first words I ever said to you. And when you answer, I want you to tell me the truth.

Rey, who am I?'


	24. Chapter 24

There is silence. No one shuffles, no one mutters, no one so much as blinks. Rey knows that the silence is hers to break, but she doesn't think she can. It appears to be an easy decision. All she has to do is confirm that he is a clone and he can walk away, an innocent man. Or she can make the other choice. The balance of the evidence he has presented is against her, but she knows that Poe has a vested interest in Ben being found guilty, and if she says that he is not a clone, then he will probably be found guilty and executed. So it is easy, on the surface, she really has no choice, all she has to do is raise her head and open her mouth and say….

'You are Project Thirty Four.'

The people in the seats around her react, they murmur and elbow each other, tap things into their commlinks, exchange significant glances. Only one person doesn't move.

'And is that enough for you?' Ben asks.

This is the real dilemma. This is the real question, and it is one she has been struggling with since the day they met. Kylo Ren was never enough for her, she wanted Ben Solo, and when she was given him she let him slip through her fingers. Now his clone is standing in front of her, someone who represents all that Ben himself could have been, if his history hadn't got in the way. He is everything she wanted – he has Ben's face, his skills, his abilities – the only thing lacking is his past. _Let the past die_, she thinks. _Kill it, if you have to_. Here is the living embodiment of that idea. Here is a Ben untainted by the shadow of the past, his memories are all dead and he can finally become what he was meant to be.

With the close of this trial, he is also a free man. She can take his hand and walk out of this court into a new life and they can start making memories together. She remembers what he said to her just before they landed on Exegol, the argument she thought wasn't quite finished – _If you stay with me we will be hunted. We will never be safe. We will never find a place to settle without fear. We will never have a home. _This trial is his solution to the problem. This is his exit strategy. He is innocent, and the whole of the galaxy now knows it, they can live anywhere they choose in peace.

But he is not Ben. She has just acknowledged that out loud, to herself as much as anyone else. Ben is dead and he isn't coming back. She has a choice between nothing, and the man in front of her, between the memory of a lost love, and a clever, brave, honest man, who loves her.

She can no longer meet his stare, and she looks at the floor instead.

She has to let the past die, she has to move on if she wants any chance of happiness. She has to settle for this man, and stop thinking of it as settling.

She takes a breath. Finds the strength to look up. And shakes her head before she quite realises what she is doing.

It is an answer born of instinct, from some half formed whisper deep down inside her that tells her this is wrong. He is not Ben. He may look like Ben, but it wasn't Ben's face she fell in love with. It wasn't his skills or abilities, it was the mistakes he had made and the chance he had to rectify them, it was the darkness of his past and the glimmer of light in his future that was attractive. When it comes right down to it, good, clean, pure, innocent Ben Solo wasn't the man she loved, wasn't even the man she knew. It is an ugly truth, but she loved him because he was Kylo Ren as well. His past defined him, in the same way that her past has defined her, and it is impossible to let that die and move on. His past makes him who he is.

The hurt on Ben's face is quick and sharp, but he clamps his lips in a tight line, strengthens his jaw and turns his attention elsewhere. Rey finds herself sitting, staring at the fingers in her lap which are twisting around each other in a constant spiral and she can't wait for all this to be over.

'That concludes my evidence,' Ben says firmly, and it may be only Rey who hears the tremble as he speaks, it is so faint. 'Do you find me guilty, or not guilty?'

The audience appears reluctant to express a view for a minute. The hollow echo of feet on wood rumbles around the hall, so many people are turning to see what their neighbours think, shifting in place, or simply expressing their discomfort with a stamp. As far as Rey is concerned, there can be only one verdict, but she is surprised at how long it is taking for the judges to come to it. The noise in the room grows, and Rey is jostled from both sides as her fellow citizens lean across her to talk to each other in a language she doesn't understand. She sneaks a glance upwards, and sees that the panel is conversing in a way that makes her think they don't agree. Poe shakes his head, but the third judge gesticulates as the second points a jabbing finger at the accused.

Rey is surprised when the first shout goes up across the hall. 'Guilty,' is the cry, the voice guttural and more of a howl than a word.

Someone else hears it though and takes up the call. 'Guilty!'

The word reverberates through the packed benches, spreading like a virus, caught by more and more people and passed on. 'Guilty, guilty, guilty.'

Rey's eyes jump to Ben. He is standing with shock written into every line of his being. The calm with which he has treated this appearance, the focus which has sustained him through the duration of the session seems to be deserting him. He sways in place, his fingers clutching at the helmet he still carries while the noise rises to deafening proportions. Whatever he had planned, this isn't it. Rey understands his predicament without needing to have it explained – being innocent was his exit strategy, he has no other plan. If he is found guilty then he has no means of escape, he hasn't thought that far in advance. It looks like she will have to use her way out after all. This is one thing she doesn't have to consider – she may have just rejected him, but she will not let the mob have him either.

A booming voice cuts through the surging chaos, and like everyone else, Rey looks up to find the third judge has commandeered the microphone and is reaching out to flick the gavel out of Poe's hand. 'Court adjourned,' she commands. 'By the authority vested in me as Chief Justice of the New Republic I declare this court is adjourned until such time as the evidence can be considered in full. Guards – clear the room.'

But the momentum in the audience is still building and this order doesn't seem to slow it down. There is such anger against the First Order here, such grief for what has been lost as a result of their actions, such hatred for anyone who once stood on the opposite side that it seems to be capable of overwhelming the normal rules of behaviour. People around Rey are getting to their feet. Some of them are shouting, at the judges, at the guards now beginning to fight their way down to the base of the hall to support their two colleagues, but most people are yelling at Ben. He tries not to react, to show weakness, but there are angry citizens all around him, pushing and heaving and it looks like he is having a hard time staying on his feet.

'Guards!' The voice of the Chief Justice has a strident ring, but Rey also hears a trace of fear in it.

The Republic troopers react, a horde of them running into the chamber from outside, and they are carrying weapons, blasters of the kind which are not allowed inside the hall. Then one of them makes a mistake. Rey doesn't see which one it is. All she hears is a sudden volley of rapid plasma fire and glancing up she sees it directed into the ceiling; it is probably meant as a warning, but it has a different effect. Fear ripples around the hall. The galaxy is only a week or so out from under First Order control and memories are still fresh – Coruscant has not yet relaxed into calm, its citizens still anticipate attack and as one, they appear to realise that they are crammed into a public place and someone is firing at them.

The hall moves, as a collective panic seems to overtake every member of the audience at once, despite the increasingly frantic yells of the judges for calm. People are on their feet, pushing their way past their neighbours to get to the exit in the most expeditious way possible and Rey finds herself pressed into the hard barrier of wood as everyone else on her row tries to get out. But in front of her, on the floor of the chamber where so many more people are gathered, the reaction is worse. The crowd swarms for the door and slightly raised above it, standing on a circular platform which has no defences and was never meant to be surrounded in the way that it currently is, stands Ben.

He is looking directly at her, and in his face she reads something that she didn't expect. There is no panic in his expression, nothing to indicate alarm, in fact if she had to guess she'd say he was happy. There is a faint smile on his lips. Then a surge of people overwhelms him and he goes down.

Rey isn't worried at first. He has no weapons but he has the Force, he can defend himself with that alone, and for the first few seconds she expects him to come up again fighting. When he doesn't she starts scanning the crowd now rushing the exits for anyone wearing a black tunic who is keeping their head down. He may well attempt to use this diversion as a way to escape.

It seems that Poe has the same thought, because he is on his feet barely a minute later, causing the floating bench to rock alarmingly. 'Seal the doors,' he commands, hefting the microphone back. 'No one leaves the court. This is not an attack. Everybody sit down.' This last sentence is delivered at such volume that it can't be missed and it causes a brief pause in the mass flight for the door. 'Anyone with a blaster, get outside and everybody else stay in your seats. Kylo Ren is trying to escape.'

This gets their attention. The clogged staircase stops moving as everyone looks at everyone else, searching for a familiar face that everyone knows. But there is no call of discovery and Rey smiles to herself. She knows what he has done. He doesn't actually need to leave the room immediately in order to escape. He can simply borrow a face, prey on the weak minded and slip out of the door when the audience is finally allowed to depart. His tricks won't work on her though, and she scans the hall surreptitiously, trying not to give away what she is doing – she must not react when she spots him, she must pretend not to see. She is so busy looking that she doesn't hear what is going on in the pit.

A space is opening at the bottom of the court, a hole has emerged in the eye of the swirl of people, a spot that everyone is trying to avoid and there is an increasingly loud murmur coming from the base of the room. Rey only starts paying attention when someone says, 'Medic.'

The word is thrown around the seating, getting passed up towards the sealed doors. Someone has been injured, which is not surprising given the crush, but a feeling of the kind Rey never ignores tells her that she needs to get down there right now, and see who it is. This is easier said than done, because the press is worse towards the seating where she is, as people avoid the podium in the centre and push back towards the sides. She is not gentle with the Force. She does not hesitate to push the obstructions out of her way, although they grumble and yell and fall over each other as she picks them up and hurls them aside. Even before she reaches the centre her heart tells her what she will find.

He is lying on the floor, a crumpled black form, his hair spread in an untidy circle beneath his head, one leg extended, and the other curled beneath him, both arms spread in a cruciform pattern. The hilt of a knife sticks out of his chest. Already a pool of deep, rich blood has spread from the wound, and it is this that the people are trying to avoid. No one wants to have his death on their shoe. It takes Rey an instant to comprehend the scene. One of these people has taken the opportunity to enact their own justice, using the cover of the pandemonium in court; she has no clue which of them it was, since every one of them looks guilty and she has no time to read minds. The way that Ben is lying tells her he has not bothered to defend himself. There are no defensive wounds on his hands and the knife has penetrated all the way into his chest. But he is not yet dead.

His face is pale and as she slides across the floor to crouch at his side she places a hand on his unmoving ribs, checking with more than the senses of her body. The life force inside him is not fully spent. A shred of him clings on somewhere, but his heart has been stopped by the blade and he is bleeding out too rapidly for any medic to counter. She takes a breath, and hurls herself into the healing trance she has used before.

She doesn't think too hard about it, she doesn't calculate how much of her energy she is transferring, there isn't time for that. Unless she does this now, he will be dead, and it will take an act of noble self sacrifice on her part to bring him back, should she wish to pursue him into the grave. She throws herself into him with all the power she can muster, she draws on reserves that she didn't know existed, she brings the power of the Force to bear and it flows through her hand and into him until she isn't sure where she ends and he begins. It feels different than the other times, more turbulent, uncontrolled, perhaps because she is rushing, she isn't quite sure when to stop or how much of her life to give so she gives it all, all her heart, all her emotion, everything she has ever felt or experienced, all of it pouring out of her and into him.

It continues for so long she stops counting the time, but she feels the limits of her power approaching and he still hasn't moved. The knife clatters to the floor as the rip in his chest knits itself back together and she takes this as a positive sign, but his chest doesn't rise and he doesn't open his eyes. She is going to exhaust herself before he wakes. She doesn't have enough energy to give, and she needs to stop soon or there won't be anything left to keep the flicker of her own life alight. There is another decision point approaching, and when it comes she doesn't hesitate. She waits until the last possible instant, and then she yanks her hand away.

She will not give herself for him. Maybe if the events of the last hour had never happened her decision would have been different, maybe if she had still been determined to hold on to the illusion that he was truly Ben she would have spent her life without a thought, but that is not the case. He is a clone, and she will give him as much as she can, but she will not give him everything. There is a core of her self that she keeps back, the central part that makes her who she is that she doesn't share.

She hopes that what she has given will be enough.


	25. Chapter 25

She has never given his eyelashes much consideration, but now she has time to count every one as she waits for some sign of recovery. She doesn't know how long it took to bring her back from the dead and for all she knows she might be waiting hours for him to wake. She is conscious of the tight press of people surrounding her and of the small space they have made where she kneels next to the fallen man. She decides that if this has failed, if Ben never regains consciousness and has been killed by the incompetence of his trial arrangements she will make the lives of every last Republic commander involved in the administration a misery from now until the day they die. She doesn't move her hand from Ben's chest and she feels that the blood on his tunic is beginning to coagulate, now that the wound beneath is healed.

He still doesn't open those long, curling lashes, cut from the same glorious template as the hair framing his too-pale face, and she reaches out to smooth it back from his forehead, in case he is finding it annoying in his sleep.

She doesn't feel tired. Usually, after performing a Force healing she needs a few quiet minutes to readjust to the sensation of being slightly less. She can feel that although the Force is limitless and all encompassing, it is a piece of her life she is transferring with the touch of her hand, which may be marked in days or years but will mean that she will be slightly earlier in her grave than she would otherwise have been. This time there is no such reservation. She feels the same as she did before with the same energy, the same determination, the same zing of life running through her veins. If anything, she feels better. More free somehow, as if she has been carrying a burden and she has finally set it down. This healing seems to have re-kindled the spark inside her rather than snuffed part of it out, and she isn't sure why. She stares at Ben and wills him to wake up, hoping that she has done enough, but suspecting she should have done more.

There is a shifting within the crowd, a muttering, a thinning of the knees which surround her and she can sense that their mood is changing. No one expects him to survive, he has been gone too long. Rey knows that Ben wasn't dead when she reached him, he was fading fast but he wasn't quite gone and she has more trust in the Force than the people around her, who have begun to sidle away. A reckoning will be coming for them – one of them has done this, and the Republic will need to find out which one it is. Rey doesn't move her hand, and she continues to count eyelashes.

The instant he moves she spots it. At first it is no more than a twitch, the roll of a covered eyeball, but this is soon followed by a couple of rapid blinks, and then his depthless eyes are open again and she is the first thing he sees. There is instant recognition, then more than that as his eyebrows raise and the corners of his mouth lift into the first hint of a smile. He heaves a great sigh, which sounds much like relief and she is pleased to feel the ruptured muscles of his chest engage under her hand as he sits up.

He doesn't glance at the rest of the room, and continues to stare into her eyes as if the mere sight of her brings him strength. She doesn't move, searching his expression for traces of pain, confusion, any concrete indication of his mental state. His hand comes up, but there is an unusual hesitation before he touches her face, running a gentle finger along her cheekbone, cupping her jaw with his palm.

He swallows a few times before he is able to find his voice. 'You healed me,' he grates out eventually. 'You brought me back.' The way he says the words suggests he finds them surprising.

'Of course.' She offers him a smile which is meant to be reassuring, because he must realise that no matter what revelations have come out in court, she could never have left him to die.

He makes a noise which sounds much like a gulp, or maybe it is a choked off exclamation, because he doesn't manage to articulate properly and leans in for a kiss instead. She isn't sure he is up to this, and nor does she want their relationship dissected even more openly than it already has been, but he is newly resurrected, and she finds she can't deny him this. His lips meet hers, his eyes flicker shut and her mouth is soft as she accepts his first tentative contact.

Then he opens the bond.


	26. Chapter 26

The connection between them roars into life as if it has been waiting for an opportunity to pounce and she freezes in shock. Everything that makes Ben who he is comes rushing out of his kiss at her so fast, and so powerfully that she can only hang on until the storm has passed. His despair at her death following the Emperor's fall, the resolve with which he healed her, his surprise and pleasure at her kiss, and then the creeping sensation of cold as his death claimed him, these impressions are foremost in his mind. There is nothing else. He does not think of the trial, his time on the _Obdurate_, the _Long Goodnight_ or Ajan Kloss – his last memory is more than a week old. She doesn't see his thoughts exactly, but something more primal and compelling, the passing of emotions through his consciousness, accompanied by a strong impression of the rightness of the connection itself, a sense of completion that belongs not to the message but the medium that carries it, the rare and unbreakable power of the dyad, two that are one once again.

She struggles to understand and the answer comes to her not in thoughts, but in feelings. Since she lost Ben the first time she hasn't felt right, and her behaviour has been out of character for her in so many ways. The sudden and irrational anger, the volatility, the impulsive decision making, the obsessive nature of her relationship with Ben's clone replacement, the increasing levels of internal conflict, even the way she has been holding her lightsaber recently, all these things are out of character for Rey Skywalker. She had thought this was the Palpatine side of her bloodline breaking though, but now she grasps the truth. These behaviours are out of character for Rey Skywalker, but they are not out of character for Kylo Ren, or for Ben Solo.

Ben gifted her his energy on Exegol, gave her everything, brought her back from death by sacrificing his entire life force, replacing hers with his. She was a dead shell, until he filled her up and made her whole again, and in so doing, had transferred everything he was into her. And that is how she has lived this last week, with Ben's life force buzzing around inside her like a caged insect, showing itself in flashes of temper and sudden mood swings, and she now suspects, thinking a bit harder, in a sudden liking for meat, an admiration for black uniforms and a love of leather gloves. She has not been herself, because this is the true power of the dyad, finally, this is what it means.

It is a power that transcends death, and she understands the words she thought she'd imagined as she stood there in the wreckage of the throne room – _I will always be with you_. She'd thought she'd heard him promise her that through the Force and she'd understood that meant he'd eventually manifest as a Force ghost and start haunting her when she least expected it. Now she sees that wasn't what he meant at all. She has always been part of a pair, part of two that are one and with Ben's death they had actually become one, a single being in body and spirit. This is why he has never appeared to her as a ghost – he was never really gone. She has been carrying him around inside her so close beneath the surface that even to the casual observer – even to a clone observer – there were clear parallels between her and Kylo Ren. Ben's clone had pointed this put on a number of occasions and she'd paid him no mind, but she sees now what he saw all along.

She and Ben were one, until just now, when she laid her hand on his chest, healed him and transferred his energy back. This is why she feels free – because the life force which has been contained inside her, an uncomfortable interloper in the end, is now back where it belongs. She can tell that this is the right answer, it has been at the back of her mind since she returned to Exegol, too strange to come to fruition until now.

She stares at him and she knows that Ben is there behind those eyes, the real Ben who has fought his way through a lifetime of poor decision making and an even more stupid death to be back at her side. He may be in a clone body but the connection between them has preserved his soul.

He can tell she has opened her eyes and as quickly as blinking, the bond cuts out as he severs it and drops his hand, releasing her lips in the same moment as a flush sweeps his face. She reads him more easily than any Jedi book; he thinks she doesn't want to kiss him, he thinks he has overstepped the mark. He rips his gaze away from hers and it falls to the floor, and fixes on a pair of shoes. He looks up, frowning as he scans the crowd, the unfamiliar faces, the guards. She has lived with him inside her, and she knows what he will do next. He is on his feet faster than anyone else can react, his hand patting at his sides for a weapon.

Hunting the room for the biggest threat his gaze lights on Finn, standing a couple of paces away, his presence in the Force shining brightly to Rey's tutored senses. 'You,' Ben hisses, flinging out a hand. 'Are always getting in my way.'

'And you,' Finn retorts, without being cowed in the slightest. 'Never know when to stay dead.'

'Finn!' Rey protests.

Finn looks around Ben's broad chest. 'You're still defending him? Despite what he is?'

'I'm defending him because of what he is.'

'I don't need anyone to defend me,' Ben cuts in. 'Particularly not from him.'

There is a barked command from somewhere further away and the remaining bystanders scatter quickly, leaving Rey and Ben in a circle of heavily armed Republic guards. Rey steps to Ben's side and despite her words she is prepared both to defend him, and defend against him, if he erupts. But he simply scans his surroundings until something across the courtroom catches his attention and he gives an audible gasp. He pales and his gaze drops. Rey sweeps the crowds and the face of Lando Calrissian jumps out at her, his expression fixed, his eyes burning. Then Ben straightens his shoulders, pulls in a steadying breath, and takes a few paces forward.

'Little starfighter,' Rey shoots out, although she really doesn't need any more proof, and Ben's stride falters.

When he glances back the look in his eyes is part pain and part determination. 'I have to apologise to him.' His empty hands twitch. 'Or something.'

But Ben doesn't get very far before there are soldiers blocking his path and Rey understands that the coming confrontation is so important he will not let anything stand in his way. Already he is tensing for a fight. She is next to him in a couple of steps and slips her hand into his. This breaks his concentration so effectively his forward momentum is halted and he looks down at her instead, while his fingers close around hers instinctively.

She is more familiar with intimate contact between them than he is, so she thinks nothing of pressing her body against his chest as she moves her free hand to cup the back of his skull, forcing him to bend his head. He seems to have no ability to resist but his eyes widen and a couple of spots of colour bloom on his cheeks.

She whispers into his ear, a breathy murmur so quiet she is sure no one else will hear. 'I love you,' she says. 'Trust me.'

Then she opens the link between them and attempts to show him, in feelings and images, all the things that have happened since he died on Exegol. When she is done she is nearly certain he hasn't understood any of it, because he has no questions, and just stands there watching her, with a smile on his face that grows so wide it changes his whole appearance. He comes alive as she watches him, he sparkles, and she feels the emotion glittering his heart – he is happy. He is so happy it lights him up and the impression is stronger than anything she ever saw from his clone, because this man has known the depths of despair, this man has lived a life in the shadows and now he steps into the light. His smile is wider, his happiness more acute, because of all he has endured to earn it. She can't help but smile back, just for a second, knowing as she does that they are not yet out of danger.

She nods back at the central podium he vacated a lifetime ago and he bends close. 'Is this a trial?'

Her head jerks in assent.

'Is this my trial?'

She nods again.

'Have I been found guilty yet?'

A shake of the head. 'You won't be found guilty. Just keep your mouth shut.'

The tension in him manifests itself in a straightening of his back and his chin comes up. She doubts that he is the sort of person who will obey such an instruction. Over her shoulder he scans the panel. 'That's the pilot, Dameron, I've met him before but he won't remember me fondly. The woman next to him is wearing the Firebird crest so she's more likely to find you not guilty than me. The third judge was on the New Republic Supreme Court, but I don't know her name. Do I have legal counsel?'

'You're running your own defence.'

'I haven't got a defence.'

'You do. You've just told them you're a clone.'

He rears back so that he can see her eyes more clearly, frowning in confusion. 'Your hair was wet and you had a blanket. I told you you weren't alone. No one else would know that. I'm not a clone.'

She rests her fingers against his chest, for no very good reason than she wants to. The cloth is dry and feels stiff and there is a slash a few inches long in it but beneath that his ribcage rises and falls with the smooth regularity of a person who is very much alive. 'I know that,' she murmurs. 'They don't.'

He glances down at her fingers, and when he looks up there is something dark and secret in his eyes, something that doesn't belong in a courtroom but he shutters it away quickly and steps back. It is two steps to the podium, which he mounts with a single stride and then he stands waiting, hands clasped loosely in front of him, his attention on the floating platform on which the judges sit. The audience realises first that the trial has resumed and there is an unseemly rush for seats. Although some people made it out of the room before the doors were closed the court is still over capacity and a large number of onlookers are forced to stand in the pit near Ben's position, but they seem overawed either by his resurrection or the ring of guards still protecting him and they press themselves back against the edge of the seating. He doesn't favour them with a glance, maintaining unbroken concentration on the judges' platform. They are still talking amongst themselves, although they are too far away for Rey to hear what they are saying. The third judge picks up a datapad and scrutinises the screen, seemingly unaware that the court is quiet again, and all faces are raised in their direction.

Ben continues to wait patiently, and another few seconds tick past, half a minute, more, and then he clears his throat noisily. 'What happens now?' he asks, in such a loud voice that Rey jumps. 'Do you talk first? Do I talk first?'

There is something about these words that makes Poe start as if he has been touched with a vibroblade and he sits forward in his chair, squinting down at the accused with his mouth open.

Ben squares his shoulders. 'What's the verdict? Am I guilty?'

Poe gives him a searching look, and then leans over to talk to the third judge, appearing to discount whatever it is that made him take note. She picks up the gavel and bangs it on the table.

'Court in session. This is highly irregular, but given the fact that someone has just attempted to murder the defendant right in front of me I will move to an initial verdict immediately. I have reviewed the evidence, and subject to a more thorough review and the receipt of independent reports from the cloning facility on Exegol, in my capacity as Chief Justice of the New Republic I find the defendant not guilty of all charges, except for that of masterminding the attack on Coruscant. I should stress that this verdict is not binding, and may be revoked should any additional evidence come to light during the period of the review. The defendant will be sentenced and will be obliged to live under certain restrictions while the court considers the evidence, but subject to your agreement to these restrictions you are free to go.'

She shoots a venomous look at Poe and carries on. 'I advise you to seek proper medical attention. And find a lawyer who can demand appropriate compensation for the inability of this court to protect you, and for the manifest abuse of due legal process represented by this trial.' She rakes the courtroom with a contemptuous glance. 'You will be the only person in this room who is free to go. Everyone else is now a suspect in the attempted murder of the defendant, and every one of you is guilty of contempt of court. No one leaves until you have all been interviewed, and until the weapon which was used to commit the crime has been matched with its owner.'

She sits back and nods at Poe, who glares back with undisguised anger for a second before seemingly remembering where he is. When he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically sour. 'You have been found guilty and you are sentenced to house arrest for the period of one standard year. You will be released into the custody of Rey Skywalker and she will…'

He tries to carry on, but Ben holds up a pre-emptory hand and crooks a finger at Rey with a disgruntled expression, bending down so that he can complain directly into her ear. 'You're going by Skywalker now?'

She shifts uncomfortably. 'I didn't want to be a Palpatine.'

'And my uncle adopted you from beyond the grave, is that it?'

'Not exactly.'

He seems unwilling to let the subject drop. 'So, of all the names in the galaxy you just happened to choose that one?'

'I wanted to belong,' she mutters. 'Can you let him get on with the trial so we can leave?'

'And you belong with Luke more than you belong with me?' His tone has turned dangerous.

'No,' she huffs, lowering her voice with half a glance at Poe. 'Of course not. But you were dead, I couldn't take your name, it would have been… odd.'

'It should have been obvious, given what we are.'

'What are we?'

'Two that are one. With one name. Mine.'

'As far as I can tell, you haven't gone by your proper name for years,' she shoots back. 'Why's it so important now?'

His mouth moves and she thinks he may be grinding his teeth. 'Because you want to belong and I am never calling you Skywalker.'

She puts a bit of space between them so that she can read his eyes. 'Are you asking me to marry you?'

'Yes,' he answers, unsmiling. 'If that's the only way to get you to change your name.'

She opens her mouth to retort before she realises that she doesn't know what to say. She hasn't thought about this in any level of detail. Before he died the first time she had never once considered a future with him – if the Resistance won it was obvious he'd either be killed, or captured and put on trial, to be executed or exiled and there had never been any kind of future that had both of them in it. After he died, when she was with his clone she'd thought vaguely about a new life somewhere but she'd never imagined the practicalities long term. There has never been a long term before this moment.

Now she doesn't know what to say. She wants to be with him, but she isn't sure she wants to be married. Lots of people spend their lives in couples, but not many of them bother with the archaic tradition of marriage, and fewer still go to the trouble of taking their spouse's name. It is the ultimate act of ownership, in taking his name she would be showing to whom she belonged, and she isn't anyone's property. But something deep down quite likes the idea of a family name – that was one of the reasons she'd taken Skywalker in the first place. Something even deeper quite likes the idea of a family too, a sturdy little boy with dark eyes and a girl who can beat him at everything.

He is scrutinising her with the sort of fascination usually reserved for a new scientific discovery and she realises she hasn't spoken in quite a long time. The blood rushes to her face so fast she feels giddy and she is mortified to see that the red blush is spreading down her chest as well but he says nothing, and turns back to the trial. The connection between them gives her a throb of something warm and strong and aimed in her direction.

He makes a circling motion to Poe with his hand. 'Start that again, I wasn't listening.'

From his high chair Poe bristles and snaps out his lines. 'I said, you will be released into the custody of Rey Skywalker and she will be solely responsible for enforcing your compliance - '

'I will be released into the custody of Rey, who is currently reconsidering her choice of last name,' Ben corrects, in a voice which is unmistakeably smug. 'And I will obey her in all things.'

She raises an eyebrow. 'Really?'

'Probably not,' he admits, glancing over. 'But I'm very interested in seeing how you plan to enforce my compliance.'

He is enjoying himself, she realises with a start. Specifically, he is enjoying her. He is enjoying talking to her, arguing with her, being in the same room as her even, without there being lightsabers involved. There is something at the core of him which wasn't there before, she senses it inside him, something bright and shiny that he has grabbed with both hands.

'She will be solely responsible for your compliance,' Poe carries on reading with a scowl. 'You will not be permitted weapons, your movements and communications will be monitored and you will be required to remain resident here at the headquarters of the New Republic government until the year of your sentence is complete.' He leans forward. 'I'm going to keep an eye on you, my friend. A very close eye indeed.'

Ben's face goes dark and his good mood drops. 'Why should I agree to these terms?'

'Because you don't have a choice, that's your sentence. You've got no legal status, no right of appeal. You're a clone, you're nothing, unimportant. But your face has the potential to stir up trouble and there has already been one attempt on your life – it's clear to me that you need my help. You've shown that you can't protect yourself and I'm going to have to come running to your rescue if you're attacked again. I'd rather not have to run very far. Those are the terms. Accept them and walk away, or reject them and go back to prison.'

Rey can sense the anger howling in Ben, because it is the same anger she would feel in his place. His shoulders tighten and his dark eyes flash and then he looks in her direction, and puts it on a leash.

He shrugs stiffly. 'Fine.'

She covers her surprise quickly in case he notices it, but her admiration for his self control is increasing. Having lived with the turbulence of his emotions she is quite surprised at how easily he smothers them, given that they are always boiling just under the surface. He doesn't wait for Poe to gloat over his capitulation, Ben is off the podium and heading for the exit, while a line of Republic troops shields him from the public. He pauses when he is level with Lando and raises his head to meet the old man's glare but he doesn't say anything. Now is clearly not the time.

She summons her pack, catches up with him when he is stomping up the last few steps and they break through the double doors together, leaving the court behind. Ben pauses just over the threshold and casts her a glance. 'What happens now?' he asks.


	27. Chapter 27

There is a whole galaxy of possibility in front of them, a world of opportunity which has just opened up and is waiting for them to seize it. 'Let's start by getting out of here,' she says, for want of any better ideas. 'The lifts are over there.'

It is clear from the press of people waiting outside the courtroom that no one else on Coruscant has anything better to do today than hang around and watch the trial, and there is quite a stir as the two of them attempt to pass through the hall. All eyes are on Ben and after a brief look round he pins his gaze to a point somewhere over the heads of the crowd in an attempt to avoid the attention and as she watches he goes into full Supreme Leader mode. His face develops the look of a man with a purpose too important to be disturbed and he strides off across the floor in the direction of the turbolifts.

Two things are immediately apparent. Firstly, his legs are very long and Rey cannot keep up with his strides, and secondly, he has no idea how to walk with someone, as opposed in front of them. She tries to lengthen her steps but fails, and falls into an uncomfortable half trot, and then abandons that as well, ending up trailing after him like a member of his retinue. But she is his equal, not his subordinate, and she has no intention of spending the rest of her days following him around. She makes an effort to catch up and then grabs his hand and drops her speed to a more comfortable pace. There is resistance from him at first, he doesn't look her way and he tries to surge ahead again but she refuses to speed up and eventually he gets the message and checks his stride. Marriages are made of such small compromises, she thinks.

She makes a casual gesture, which opens up a path wide enough for two in the crowd and they sweep along majestically through the herds of onlookers. Rey is beginning to enjoy herself. After a while, he squeezes her hand. Their progress comes to an abrupt halt before the entrance to the bank of turbolifts though, where a winding snake of people stands in line, waiting for their turn. Rey joins the back of the queue, although Ben attempts to press forward for a second before he realises she has stopped.

'They aren't getting out of my way,' he notes, and the heavyset Gran in front of him turns and gives him a stare from all three eyes.

'This is a queue,' Rey explains patiently. 'It's how people wait for what they want.'

'I mean, they aren't afraid of me. Everyone is usually afraid of me.' He gets another triply serious look for this comment, which is easily loud enough to be overheard.

She shrugs. 'I don't think they like you very much, but I doubt anyone is afraid of you. The whole galaxy thinks you're a clone.'

He drops her hand as he considers this, his brow furrowing in thought. She isn't completely sure she knows this expression. He isn't familiar enough to her yet for her to predict how he will react in any given situation, how he will look or what he will do when she says or does a certain thing. He isn't like his clone. There is something more below the surface. The Force bond helps, it hums away in the background reassuring her that all is well because they are together, but it isn't a terribly good indicator of his thoughts, and she finds that she is interested in what he is thinking. She wants to know what his opinions are, what's on his mind.

'Does that mean I'm free?' he asks, and there is something so incredibly vulnerable in his eyes that she feels embarrassed to have seen it for a second. The contrast in him takes her breath away, he is stronger than anyone she knows, but at times he is so sensitive she wants to blanket him in her arms and protect him from the world.

She looks away for a minute. She knows he isn't really asking about incarceration, the question has a much wider range, but there are limits to how much she can help him with this. He will never be free of his past, it will continue to haunt him long after everyone else's memories have faded and this is something he will need to come to terms with himself. She chooses an easy answer instead. 'I wouldn't say you're free. Not yet. You're under house arrest for a year remember, and Poe is going to keep an eye on you.'

Ben gives a snort of disdain. 'As if that's a threat.' His face flattens out for a second, and then the people around them move in unison, standing aside and leaving the path to the lift doors empty. 'I don't queue,' he says.

'I don't think you're going to like being poor,' Rey comments, following him into the lift as he slaps a button for the top floor.

'No one likes being poor.' He stands in the corner and folds his arms as the doors close. 'Now we're alone, tell me what's really been happening since I died.'

She leans against the opposite wall. She remembers the last time they were in a lift together, her and the real Ben, and she wonders if he does too. 'Not long after you disappeared a man was found wandering naked around the corridors of Exegol, he had your face, and he could use the Force so Poe thought he was you and tried to kill him. I also thought he was you, but with amnesia, so I broke him out of prison and we hid in the jungle while I trained him. We had to escape from Ajan Kloss so we got jobs on a cargo freighter and then we were cornered by the Resistance, so he pretended to be Kylo Ren, called the First Order to rescue us and they came and picked us up.'

'You joined the First Order?'

'Sort of. Then when we left, he went back to Exegol where he found out he was a clone and we were captured by the Resistance. He was put on trial as Kylo Ren and during the trial someone tried to kill him - when I healed him you came back instead. I think you've been inside me all this time.' She swallows. Her legs feel weak and her palms are sweaty.

He doesn't seem to notice. 'You joined the First Order? Did you rule? What decisions did you make? Did you enjoy it?'

She shakes her head. This is straying into ground she doesn't want to cover. 'I didn't rule.'

'No? Then what did you do?'

She mumbles something.

'A consort – ' he muses. 'That's almost the same as a concubine. Or a partner. Or a spouse.' His eyes widen. 'You joined the First Order and pretended to be my wife?' There is a short pause as he comes to the inevitable conclusion but he clamps his lips together on a follow up question and simply raises his eyebrows.

'I thought he was you.' She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

'I don't know whether to be flattered or jealous.' He steps forward and the link between them glows with an immense outpouring of warmth; he isn't annoyed, despite the serious look on his face. Again she has the impression that he is enjoying himself, but she doesn't get another of his rare and beautiful smiles. He takes another step, and the heat she feels through the Force transmutes into a more physical reaction. His eyes seem to darken, locking on to hers with an attention so focused it seems he has forgotten how to blink. He is right up close to her now, although they are not touching and the height difference means she has to tilt her chin to keep the stare intact. 'Definitely jealous,' he says in a voice which is a low purr and comes rumbling out of the depths of his chest.

She is sure he is remembering the last time they were together in a lift, back when she thought a few words from her would be enough to turn him to the light. She would like to be in that moment too, but he is so close she can see the stubble where he hasn't shaved properly, hear the steady rasp of his breathing and smell the complex scent he has when they are near enough to touch. The last time they were this close she kissed him and then he died, and that is what she sees now. The smile on his face and then the sudden cold as it dropped, the weight of him falling back in her arms and the utter desolation when she knew she was alone. It is the day she loved and lost and was abandoned that she remembers, and not that charged encounter before she met Snoke when the longer they stayed in that lift the more she thought he might kiss her.

Her legs are shaking. Her nails bite into the palms of her hands as she tries to stay upright. The sharp detail of his features blurs as she watches and then he moves, his arms coming up to pull her into a hard hug, her cheek creasing against his tunic, his chin resting on the top of her head. He holds her as she cries, and the bond wraps her up and keeps her close.

After a while he murmurs, 'I had no choice. Saving you was more important than anything else.'

'It wasn't,' she snuffles. 'I didn't ask you to die for me.'

'You weren't in a position to ask me for anything. That was the whole point. I'd do it again if I had to.'

She clings to him, in a way that she doesn't remember doing to another living soul, and as she stands there locked in his embrace, held and comforted and understood by the only person in the wide and populous galaxy with whom she truly connects, something inside her changes. A wound she has carried deep inside begins to heal. Behind him, the doors of the lift hiss open and she takes a moment to wipe away the tears. He pauses on the threshold and this time stands there waiting for her with his hand outstretched, expecting her to take it. He has always expected her to take his hand. This time, she does. They emerge onto the top floor of the court building and Ben squints in what passes for sunshine as he glances round.

'Coruscant,' he says, the distaste evident. 'Location – Core Worlds. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – Monument Plaza, Federal District, Uscru Entertainment District, Bureau of Ships and Services Heritage Museum.'

'What did you say?' Rey pulls up so fast he loses his grip on her hand.

'I said I hate this place.'

'You didn't, you said something about a museum.'

'There are lots of museums. I can't remember them all. I'm sure there will be plenty of time for us to visit every single one over the next year.' He pulls a face and strides off in the direction of the airspeeder rank leaving her reeling in his wake.

It has to be a co-incidence, surely. Other people must be able to describe points of interest and key facts about the planets they visit, it has to be a co-incidence that Ben has just recited an encyclopaedia entry in exactly the same way as his clone used to. She tests the bond nervously, but it leaps at her touch and he glances round with an impatient beckoning motion.

'What are you planning to do for the next year then, if you don't want to visit museums?' She keeps her thoughts to herself, it will be a strange quirk of speech, that's all.

He uses the Force to finagle his way to the front of the queue again and there is an awkward dance as both of them head for the pilot's seat in the first speeder off the rank, but she lets him have it and settles into the passenger chair, setting the co-ordinates for her apartment which is towards the outskirts of the civic centre, an hour or so away. She watches him carefully, but there are no pre-flight checks, no adherence to the manual, he takes off smoothly, his hands moving across the controls automatically. There is relatively little to do once they are aloft, since traffic on Coruscant is heavily regulated and the ship can almost fly itself. He reaches over to the navcomp, examines the course she has set for a moment, and then overrides it without a word. The ship turns obediently into a new lane.

'What do you think I should do?' He makes a show of running through diagnostics although she suspects this is simply displacement activity to camouflage the fact that he is trying to come up with a direction for the rest of his life.

'You could become a Jedi again, open a temple and train the next generation?' She frames it as a question because she is fairly sure this idea will not be attractive to him, although it is something that has occurred to her as a career option.

'I will not make the same mistakes my uncle made.'

'You aren't planning on reviving the Sith?'

There is a vehement shake of his head. 'Palpatine said he was every voice I had ever heard inside my head. No more voices. I don't want anyone telling me what to do.'

'Except for me, of course.'

He gives her a sideways look. 'Of course.'

'You could join the Republic and help them start a new government, they seem to be struggling.'

'I will not make my mother's mistakes, either.'

'Well, I happen to know that the First Order has nearly forty Star Destroyers, plenty of troops and control of quite a few territories. You know them better than anyone, I'm sure your help would be useful in bringing them down.'

He prods at a few more buttons. 'I wouldn't need anyone's help to bring them down. Except yours, of course.'

'Of course,' she says. 'I'll help you.'

'Will it be more help than you gave me last time? Because last time you said you'd help me I ended up having to rescue you, and then you ran off and I didn't see you for months.'

She pulls a face. He has definitely been thinking about the last turbolift. 'We'll be a team,' she says. 'You and I, facing down the First Order, the last two Skywalkers taking on the failed army of a petty tyrant.'

'You are aware that this speeder is fitted with an ejector seat?'

Her hand flashes out and settles on his leg. 'You're not getting rid of me that easily.'

He swivels his attention away from the lanes of heavy traffic. 'I never wanted to get rid of you.' He isn't teasing any more, his tone is quite serious. 'I only ever wanted you to stay.'

It is a large leg, and the muscles in it are solid beneath her fingers as they lie spread against the black. She doesn't just want to kiss him, she wants to devour him, she wants to take everything he has and make it hers, she wants to hold him so tightly he won't ever escape. It is savage, this feeling, savage and beautiful at the same time and it rips through her and leaves her gasping. But it is nothing compared to the hunger with which he is regarding her.

She is dimly aware that outside the window the nose of their craft is dipping, its altitude beginning to fail but despite this, it is a few moments before she can bring herself to look away.

She calls up the co-ordinates on the navcomp. 'Where are we going anyway? My apartment is in the other direction.'

He takes a deep breath. 'Your friend Dameron put me under house arrest. He didn't say which house.'

The speeder commences its landing sequence and the view beyond the windows is blocked out by an enormous tower, fingers of glittering red stone pushed together into an edifice which is pierced by thousands of windows and stretches further into the sky than any other she has seen. The speeder heads for one of the upper floors and then lands on a private dock large enough for a significantly bigger ship although nothing else stands there. Ben jumps out of the shuttle and Rey follows more slowly, shouldering her pack and taking in the faint orchestral music which has been triggered by their landing, the spotlights which now mark out a path to the front door, the control panel which whines, and then flips down with a sudden jerk, as if it has not been used in some time.

Ben doesn't access it immediately. He stands and stares at it for a minute but she doesn't hurry him because she thinks she knows where they are.

'This apartment belonged to my mother,' he says after a while. 'I'm not sure if my biometrics will still work the door. If she thought I wasn't coming back she'll have changed the locks.'

Rey says nothing. After quite a long time, Ben runs a hand through his hair, then raises a finger to the panel and from her position behind him, Rey can see that it is shaking. The door releases and the light flashes green immediately. Ben bows his head and makes no move to go inside.

'She never gave up on you,' Rey says softly, his distress obvious even without the bond. 'And she was right not to, wasn't she?' From his perspective, this loss is fresh, its sting undiminished. Grief is another area in which the help she can offer has limits. She can support him, but he needs to work through the process on his own.

He swallows and when he answers his voice is thick. 'Too late.'

She puts a hand on his back, and leaves it there to remind him that she is there for him, and she is also there because of him, because he saved her. 'No. You weren't too late.'

She leaves him outside and steps across the threshold, giving him some space while she explores. There is a lot to explore. The hall she enters is bigger than the whole apartment she has been allocated, and it leads into a spacious lounge area, scattered with various sofas and armchairs clustered around a central holographic fireplace. The furniture shows little sign of use, and the way it is positioned seems designed for impact, rather than comfort. This room has several exits, one of which leads to a dining room so large Rey thinks it may be better described as a banqueting suite, the long table holding too many chairs to count, although the room is no longer as impressive as it once was - a thin layer of dust blankets everything. Tracking back into the lounge Rey opens another door, finding a network of smaller rooms behind, some of which appear to be more private meeting venues, while others may be offices and one is a library. It is through this room that she gains access to the family quarters behind.

Here, the emphasis is completely different. The rooms are much smaller, and there is no grand furniture, instead cushions and throws soften every available surface in the living room, the sofas are squashy and closer together, clustering around a thick pile rug on the floor. There is a single holo on the bureau in the corner, a family group shot in which a man and a woman with their arms around each other smile out at the viewer, and at their feet stands a serious, dark haired child. She doesn't touch the picture and retreats immediately, knowing that she is intruding somewhere she doesn't belong.

There is a kitchen next door, fully equipped for both hydrating and replicating food, as well as actual cooking and a table is placed at one end for communal dining. Someone has marked the table in scrawls of what looks like paint. Down a corridor are further doorways which she enters at random. The first is a large bedroom but Rey gets no further than two steps inside before she spots the dressing table with its load of neatly ordered cosmetics and she leaves as quickly as she came. The room next door is no better, with its single bed, empty storage cabinets in bright, primary colours and the rug in the shape of an X Wing on the floor.

The final room she tries is suitably anonymous, and it is the only place that does not seem to be either designed for grand entertaining, or haunted by the memory of the family which used to visit. There is a bed made with sheets that are clean, if a little dusty, a few storage cabinets and a small fresher through a door at the far end, and that is all she needs. She tips out her pack and prepares to settle in.

It is only then she realises that they have not discussed this. She is assuming that she is welcome here, and that he wants her to live with him, but this is not a conversation that they have actually had out loud. She has told him she loves him, and he has asked her to marry him, and promised to die for her again should the need arise, but there has not been time for more domestic concerns.

'This isn't a very good repair,' he says. 'I think you'd be better off starting again with a new casing.'

She glances over to where he has picked up Luke's lightsaber and is examining it critically. His eyes are still slightly puffy and the end of his nose is red but she doesn't mention it. 'That's what went wrong for me when we fought on the Death Star,' she replies. 'The saber wasn't working properly.'

'Nothing went wrong for you when we fought on the Death Star. Except that you lost and then you cheated.' He puts the first saber down and hovers his hand above the other, bringing his abilities to bear. 'And this belonged to my mother. I knew she'd made one but I didn't know what had happened to it.' He picks it up with a touch that Rey thinks is probably reverential and turns it over gently in his hands.

'It's yours,' she says. 'They both belong to you. It's about time I made myself a new one.'

He points to the mended weapon that he was once so very keen to own. 'This one belonged to my grandfather, you can keep it. But this one,' his long fingers stroke the grooves on the handle. 'This one I'd like to have, if you don't mind.'

She shrugs, 'Anything.'

He moves on to the next stack of items she has dumped on top of the storage cabinet and opens the top book, flicking the pages at random. 'These are the original Jedi texts, aren't they? Do you mind if I read them sometime?'

'Do you like books?' she asks suspiciously.

Something on the page he is perusing has caught his eye and he bends closer for a minute. 'Hmm?'

She reaches over and snaps the cover shut. 'You can read them whenever I'm not here.'

He narrows his eyes. 'How often are you planning on not being here?'

She gives him a faint smile instead of an answer. It seems that he is assuming the same thing that she is assuming – now that she is with him she is never going to leave. He steps sideways and examines the pile of folded clothing which is the next of her meagre possessions, picks up the first item and shakes it out.

'This isn't your colour, and it's a little large for you, isn't it?' He holds the dark grey tunic against his chest. 'It's almost big enough for me.'

She opens a drawer and pretends to be interested in the space inside. She has become accustomed to dressing Ben's clone, but for some reason she finds herself embarrassed at knowing the measurements of his body well enough to clothe the man himself.

'That's very thoughtful of you,' he says awkwardly, and she hears him fumble the top back into an untidy mess, and then he pounces on something at the bottom of the stack. 'But these are more my style.'

She glances over quickly, already putting out a hand to grab back what he has found but it is too late. He shakes out the stained and rumpled black garment at arm's length and the look on his face turns from admiration to sadness as he notices the hole.

'You've been carrying this around with you the whole time?' he asks in a voice which is almost unbearably tender.

She tries for a self deprecating shrug. 'I keep holding on. Can't seem to stop.'

'Rey,' he breathes, and then there are arms around her and a broad chest in her eyeline and his lips are soft against her forehead. She tilts her head back to break the contact because that isn't where she wants to be kissed.

He looks into her eyes and the warmth swelling in the Force is all affection and a kind of aching compassion that hurts him as he feels it; he knows how she has grieved for him, and he knows he is responsible, although he doesn't regret it. But this isn't what she wants from him either. She needs more. She needs to forget that she lost him and remember that he is back.

His gaze is a little too bright as he reads her face, a little too shiny and he raises a hand to brush a wisp of hair away from her cheek, so gently it feels like the wind is caressing her rather than the man she loves.

'There's so much…' he whispers, but she doesn't want to hear it. She won't let him finish.

She launches herself at him too fast to prevent, her arms winding tight about his neck, her head tilting as she pushes her mouth against his and there is a moment of hesitation during which his shoulders tense and his lips remain firm and unyielding. Then he surrenders. She can feel him do it in a way that is more than just physical. He gives himself to her completely, flings himself into the kiss with all the fire and passion she has come to expect from him; anything she wants he will provide, anything she asks for, he will deliver. But she only wants one thing.


	28. Chapter 28

Rey has been kissed by these lips before, many times, but she does not know this kiss. This kiss is searing.

She cannot explain exactly what he is doing to the inside of her mouth, but it feels good, as good as the way his hand is pressing into the small of her back, low enough to push her hips subtly against him, as good as the solid feeling of his chest against her breasts. It takes her a moment to understand why she doesn't recognise this kiss – it is because he knows what he is doing. He doesn't have to learn it, he has done this before. The realisation releases some of the tension she is carrying; she does not need to hold back, she can go as quickly as she needs to.

He makes a noise, a low rumble in his chest as she moulds her body against his, acknowledging the passion which is building low in her belly. She has no desire to wait. He is warm and alive and in her arms at last and she wants as much of him as she can get, as soon as possible. Her fingers slip away from his neck, weave down the expanse of his chest and begin to unbuckle his belt and the speed and the ease with which his clothing hits the floor sends its own signal. This is how it will be the first time, this is how she wants it, she will take, and he will give, and it feels like the spark between them catches fire, a conflagration of shared lust which pushes mouths together, sets tongues delving deeper, causes hands to wander willing bodies. She is hot for him because she has waited such a long time for this and thought that the chance was lost forever, and he has given himself to her and is ready to acquiesce.

She reaches blindly for the bottom of his tunic and tugs fruitlessly at it for a minute until he steps back and breaks the kiss, yanking off the offending fabric and the black undershirt beneath and tossing them away. She spreads her hands possessively over his naked flesh, pushing on his skin with the pads of her fingers to watch the little indentations form. She bends forward to press a kiss to the centre of his chest. His hands come up to release her hair from its three-celled prison, spreading it out across her neck as his fingers sink into it.

She starts again, kisses her way across his chest, flicks out her tongue and licks his nipple, before her hands drop to pull at the gauzy fabric which is covering her body.

He steps back and examines her clothing with a critical eye. Her belt comes off first, and he yanks the loose material it is securing away from her shoulders while she is still trying to kick off her boots; together they manage to manoeuvre her white top over her head. She removes the breastband herself and when she flings it onto the floor and she is exposed he stares at her for a minute, taking her in. There is an almost palpable heat in the air between them and she senses that this is a turning point, a moment which has been long in coming, and after which there will be no going back.

His fingers trace a path down her arms and he gets as far as her elbows before she reaches up and links her hands around his neck again. Her breasts are bare against his chest. His palms stroke her back.

'Ben,' she whispers, trying out the word, because she has so rarely said it out loud. She needs to banish the memory of the last time she spoke his name, on the terrible day on which she died, and loved and lost. 'Ben.'

Her fingers seek out his cheek, and she drags her thumb over his lower lip, the plump press of it yielding to her touch. Stretching up on tiptoes her nipples trace a deliberate path across his chest and she presses her lips to his and heaves herself off the ground with the power of the Force, wrapping her legs around his waist while his arms jump reflexively to support her bottom. She takes control of the kiss, invading his mouth, running a hand up into his hair, telling him with tongue and fingers and body that she is ready. Very carefully, one step at a time, he paces towards the bed, depositing her onto the covers and following her down. His hips come to rest between her legs, a heavy weight but one that is most welcome and she wraps her ankles over the back of his knees, rubbing her pelvis against the bulk of his body. He abandons her mouth and his lips navigate the side of her neck. Her nails scratch his scalp. He tongues her clavicle, goes lower, circles her right breast and then pulls her nipple into his mouth.

She catches her breath, a loud counterpoint to the wet sucking noises that escape his lips, the faint murmurs that indicate his appreciation for this task. Deliberately, she inserts her hands into the space where their bodies meet, seeking the waistband of her leggings. She is quite sure of what she wants, and it includes all of him, all his past and all his future and he takes the suggestion she offers, rolling off her and stripping her of any remaining clothes with a couple of sharp jerks of his hands.

He doesn't touch, he just looks, those dark eyes shifting across her skin with a palpable heat. There is something building, the throb in her groin becoming more acute. At length, his hand comes up and he slides his fingers over her stomach although it is the expression in his eyes as he watches her that makes her wet rather than the assured approach of those thick and powerful digits. She reaches for the front of his trousers.

There is a long moment of shared exploration marked only by gasps, the rush of a hastily indrawn breath, by the opening of legs and the springing release of rigid flesh. His long fingers brush across her clitoris, delve into the space between her legs, then return full of wet warmth to slick up and down. Her grip is firm and her rhythm even, his initial response a sticky mess over her fist within a few short seconds. She bends over to taste it, lapping the thin fluid off his cock with a few expert sweeps of her tongue. His eyes are very round as he watches, his breath panting through lips which are red with kissing. She throws her leg over his hips and straddles him.

Rey is familiar with the stretch by now. She no longer thinks his size unusual, and she isn't anxious as he feeds her his cock. She rides him, slowly and carefully at first, with her hands resting gently on his chest while he lies as if stunned, an expression of absolute wonder crossing his features. He recovers quickly though, and that moment of vulnerability disappears under a slow growing smile. Shoving one hand beneath his head the other finds her waist, holding her down while his hips thrust upwards and she gives a little grunt of surprise. The hand shifts, and his fingers are now in play, strumming away at her clitoris with such instant effect that she bites her lip and goes faster. She impales herself on him, glorying in the tight squeeze, the hot jab as her body swallows his cock, focusing on nothing but the orgasm which is coming in the next few seconds. He rams into her with a few short, sharp jerks and the speed of his hand increases to the extent that she cries out with it, and her muscles clench on his cock in preparation.

Then the space behind her eyes turns to white fire and she can only brace her hands on his chest and hang her head as she shakes in the throes of the climax he is giving her.

She clambers off him the instant she comes back to herself and sprawls face up on the bed, recovering. Beside her he lies on his back, the pant of his breathing loud in the stillness of the bedroom.

_That's what it would have been like. _The thought comes swimming up from the depths of her consciousness and she considers it. _If he had never died, if we had left Exegol together and found somewhere to be alone. It would have been exactly like that._

_It wouldn't._

She muses on the contradictory thought. _Maybe it wouldn't. If I'd taken him back to the Resistance it wouldn't have been like that at all. It would have been impossible to find somewhere we could be alone on the base, I'd have had to wait. For months at least, maybe years while Poe decided what to do with him. _

_You don't like waiting. The last few minutes have amply demonstrated that. _

She frowns to herself. Impatience isn't usually a fault she acknowledges. She is familiar with waiting for the things she wants – for her parents to come back, for her to be well trained enough to earn Luke's lightsaber.

_That weapon always belonged to you, you didn't have to earn it. It came when you called. _

_True, _she thinks, although that isn't a perspective that has occurred to her before._ Although the first time I touched it I had a vision of Ben, so maybe it was meant to be his too, in a way. _

_I found it quite disappointing, actually. I'd gotten used to the crossguard. _

She tenses, screws her eyes shut and tries to make her mind completely still. He can't possibly be hearing her thoughts. She can read his emotions, she gets a sense of his mind through the link they share but she can't actually hear his thoughts. And now she considers it, she isn't sure that the connection between them is even open. She was so focused on getting him into bed as soon as possible, and she was so used to having sex without it, that she hadn't taken the time to switch it on. She can feel that there is something between them but the more the urgent desire for him fades from her system, the more she thinks it may just have been physical attraction, rather than anything more mystical.

_That's why it would have been different if we'd left Exegol together. _

The voice in her head is back, and it doesn't sound like her own voice any more. Now she is sure it belongs to someone else.

_It would have been more like this. _

Beside her, Ben rolls over and his hand lands rather possessively on top of her stomach. She glances from it to his eyes and what she finds there sticks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. His eyes hold an expression she has only seen before in glimpses and while she drowns in it he opens the bond between them and the world changes around her.

There is so much more behind his eyes. There is so much he wants to tell her, so much he wants to share, and while her first thought was to strip him naked and ride him to climax – her own climax, she now realises, since he is still unfulfilled – he was thinking about something else. It is more than sex he wants from her, although he wants plenty of that as well, it is connection, partnership; it is a life. And very little of it has anything to do with the strange cosmic power that binds them together.

The feeling and images that the bond provides are broken, not the coherent inner monologue of conversation but she can make sense of them nonetheless. He would like to share his childhood with her and find out about hers, he wants to talk about coming to adulthood and the problems she faced, so that he can compare them to his own. He is interested in the plans she has for herself so that he can shape his future around her and he would like to train with her, because he thinks he can improve her technique. He wants to learn everything he can, from her views on politics to the food she prefers, from the size of her shoes to what she looks like when she sleeps. His fascination with her is inexhaustible and as she looks into his eyes she sees that the dyad he has in mind, the joining of two that he wants, is not really to do with the Force at all. It is far more mundane than that, and far more powerful.

She looks into him, she sees his heart and in that moment she is sure that his past will cast a long shadow, and there will be fights and arguments and life will not be easy all the time. He is fierce, and difficult and damaged, and he has done things of which she will never approve, but there is so much strength in him, such courage and intelligence and there is a capacity for love that makes him utterly compelling. He shows her who he is. And she loves him, for all the faults and errors, because he chooses her, and she chooses him, and when it comes down to it, that is what love is. That is the power of the dyad, that is what it means.

There is a faint smile on his lips as he leans closer and she closes her eyes and surrenders. Anything he wants she will provide, anything he asks for, she will deliver. But he only wants one thing.

He wants to kiss her back. She sees that this has been on his mind since he woke up on the floor of the courtroom. The last thing he remembers is that she kissed him and then he died, and he never got the chance to kiss her back. He never had a chance to show her how he felt, or what that kiss meant, or how happy she made him, or a vast multitude of things which all have to do with how different his life is going to be now that she is in it. He wants to tell her all of this, and he wants to do it right now, in a language that doesn't use words.

He shifts position, and she spreads her legs to accommodate the width of his hips, opens her mouth at the first brush of his and receives his tongue. He kisses her giddy, he makes her feel wobbly although she is lying down, because his kiss is so slow and so gentle to start with, and builds into such passionate intensity that her hips are rising off the bed beneath him with the force of her need before he has finished. He makes her wait. He doesn't enter her until he is done with her mouth and when he finally sinks inside her it is with his dark eyes locked on hers, their fingers intertwined against the sheets and the power of his love for her running through her head.

Sex with him is long, deliberate strokes delivered with full eye contact and an indirect pressure on her clitoris, punctuated by short, staccato bursts at a different angle that leave her panting on the edge of orgasm, before he returns to the languorous technique of before. He brings her to the brink of climax four or five times and then slows down again, and her encouraging moans and frustrated whimpers only seem to prolong the experience. She can't hear his thoughts, but it is obvious he is enjoying himself, she senses that he enjoys having her writhing under him, he enjoys the control it brings. There is far too much of the dark side in his nature.

She drags her mind out of her groin for a few brief seconds, just long enough to consider what she can do to match him, how she can fight back, and then she takes care to articulate the thought slowly and carefully. _I love you._

His face changes, his shoulders tense, his hips flex upwards and his control cracks wide. With a few powerful, unco-ordinated strokes his orgasm explodes and takes her with it and she comes, brim-full of cock, with Ben's long, sweaty limbs covering hers, as he repeats the words into her ear.

Afterwards he rolls off her but one arm clutches her to his side and she pillows her head in the hollow of his chest.

_How is it that you can read my mind? I can't tell what you're thinking unless you want me to. _

_We're a dyad, Rey_. His answer is silent, and unnecessarily cryptic.

_I've come to the conclusion that's not a very helpful description. Every time I think I understand what you mean it changes into something else._

_It was obvious after Crait that you and I were still linked. Didn't you wonder what was going on? I did. I researched. I read a lot. I looked for answers. You must have done the same thing. You've got the Jedi texts. Didn't you look it up?_

She seethes, without using any words at all and she is silent so long that he answers himself.

_It means we're one. We're two halves of the same whole. The Force bridged our minds to bring us closer, and now we're standing on the same side. We're together now. We're joined. _

She concentrates, reaches out for the part of her consciousness that holds the power of the Force and does her best to see his thoughts, to bridge the gap and make the link that he has made, but she doesn't know what she's doing and she hasn't spent enough time studying her books to really understand.

_Apologies for repeating myself, but you need a teacher. _

_I think I liked you better when you were dead._

He reaches over for her hand and links their fingers together. There is a certain amount of ceremony in the way he does it and there is an echo in his thoughts, a memory of the amount of times he has imagined this moment. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he says out loud, and when she glances over, she sees he is smiling. 'This is forever.'

But something in what he has said about the Jedi texts, and the unguarded happiness of that smile makes her wonder. Earlier today he smiled at her, earlier today, she looked at his clone across a crowded courtroom and caught him smiling at her before the mob pulled him down. She remembers him, her clone, that clever, brave, honest man who loved her. A man who had read the Jedi texts. A man who had recognised the strange similarity between her and Ren, who knew how Ben had died and who had maybe, just maybe, put the pieces together.

He hadn't defended himself, he let someone stick a knife through his heart, not long after she herself had done the same thing and rejected him for not being enough like her lost love. He went down with a smile on his face, which seems odd, now that she considers it. He knew she had the ability to heal him, and he may have gambled on what would happen if she did. He may have given his life deliberately to make this moment possible. He may have sacrificed himself because he loved her. It wouldn't have been the first time.

She stares at Ben's profile. He talks like a textbook sometimes, exactly like his clone. He runs his fingers through his hair when he is nervous, exactly like his clone. He wasn't actually dead before she brought him back to life.

Maybe somewhere deep inside Ben Solo lurks the ghost of Project Thirty Four, lurks the ghost of the man he could have been – the good, clean, pure, innocent Ben who was lost so long ago. She has seen the worst of him, but she has also seen the best, and that isn't a bad foundation for a marriage. She snuggles into his side and his arm tightens to hold her close.

No one is ever really gone, after all.

Thank you for reading this story. If you want to read more, my romance novels The Car Crash Bride and The Postman's Daughter are available on Amazon.


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